Eight years after the Brexit vote, Keir Starmer is looking to strengthen ties with the continent — without rejoining the EU, of course. Meanwhile, Britons seemingly aren’t feeling the benefits of forging a divergent path from Brussels. New polling from YouGov shows that over half the population believes “the negatives of Brexit have outweighed the positives”, while just 17% believe the reverse.
While respondents become more boosterish about Brexit the older they are, none of the age groups surveyed, from 18-24 to 65+, think that leaving the EU has been a net positive. The North of England is the most Brexit-friendly region measured, but even then only 20% of Northerners think the positives outweigh the negatives, compared to 48% who believe the opposite.
Looking at respondents by politics, it shouldn’t be surprising that three-quarters of both Lib Dem and Labour voters think that Brexit has broadly been a bad thing. More striking, however, is that only 34% of Conservatives and 39% of Reform UK voters judge Brexit to have been successful. Is Starmer right that Britain won’t rejoin the EU in his lifetime?
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