A clear majority of the British public now believes Brexit has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration, according to a landmark poll by Opinium to mark the third anniversary of the UK fully leaving the EU single market and customs unions.
The survey of more than 2,000 UK voters also finds strikingly low numbers of people who believe that Brexit has been of benefit to them or the country.
It’s become undeniable.
My mother was all in on Brexit, she started out fiercely declaring it’s what the country needed.
Then she said it’s going to benefit the country soon, then said it needs some time.
Then she said that everything going wrong was unrelated to Brexit. Then said its not that bad, and the eventual positives will balance out.
That’s the opinion shifting over the years. She now admits it was a mistake, “but how could we have known?!?”…
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Saying that most Brexit voters thought anything about an EEA arrangement is giving them too much credit imo.
Their thought process was as shallow as “we should be independent, get the foreigners out, save EU membership fees, then everything will be good”, with no thought about the reality of the situation and how it will be achieved.
A lot of them wanted hard Brexit just because negotiating a deal was taking too long, because in their minds it’s as simple as just leaving.
All these views were rampant as Brexit was all things to all people.
At least your mom acknowledges it was a mistake.
Your Mum’s journey seems quite positive, overall. Is she now in favour of re-joining? If not, then she still has a long way to go.
My Dad has a good pension and a good job at the same time. He won’t notice that things have gotten worse for most people, and if he does I don’t think he will see the correlation anyway.
Ask her to get off Facebook and/or check what she sees on the news. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think Facebook is a big part of why it happened. I’m convinced the Kremlin pushed Brexit propaganda on social media in an attempt to divide the EU.
Britons voted for it, now they think it’s completely failed. I don’t know guys, but there some questions that we should just not ask Britons!!?
Personally voted against Brexit, but always believed it should never have even gone to a referendum. We are a parliamentary democracy and parliament should have decided.
We are a parliamentary democracy and parliament should have decided.
“How dare those dirty proles be given a choice”
Yup, you’re a real hero with your populism. Look how great that turned out.
People these days treat democracy like a damned religion instead of a system of governance. Turns out though that complex decisions often benefit from expertise instead of letting the lowest common denominator decide.
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Because it turned out so damn well for the UK when they did let the average person decide on policy that they have no fucking clue about, didn’t it?
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the lowest common denominator
How’s the weather up there in your ivory tower?
I suppose when you are down in a dank shitty hole of your own making, normal sunlight and open ground must seem like an ivory tower.
Would you like me to let down a rope ladder for you?
The problem is that it was an advisory vote and it is should have been handled by initially deciding a negotiating position.
Leaving the EU meant a lot of different things and the approximate idea of implementation should have been decided on before leaving.
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The problem is that it was an advisory vote
This is sometimes raised, but is misleading. The only reason it was legally advisory is because in the British system of government, the UK cannot bind Parliament; the House of Commons can override anything else.
In the system of government in some countries, the option for a meaningful legal difference between two types of referendum exists.
The British government had been explicit that what the British public voted for would be implemented; this is the closest analog to a binding referendum. Had they simply wanted to request the advice of the public, it would have been announced that they would take the outcome under consideration.
This is not to say that having that referendum was s good idea. It is just to say that the binding/advisory nature is really a property of the British system of government, not to indicate that the intent was to merely take the public’s vote as advice.
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We are a parliamentary democracy and parliament should have decided.
It was decided by the political class, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. With such a slim margin they could have said “oh well, it’s practically 50-50, it’s wiser to maintain the status quo”.
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Nigel Farage was already gearing up to become a massive thorn in everyone’s backside. He actually thought it probably would go that way he didn’t realize that he barely won.
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“Which is the best brand of brown sauce?”
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The problem is letting people be deliberately missinformed. To the point they were tricked into voting against their own interest. Allowing that is the issue and throughing a referendum into that was always going to end badly.
The whole point of a representative democracy is to acknowledge that in some cases the populace lack the proper understanding to make an informed choice.
Refernerdums of this size and impact should require more than a simple majority. Or countries would just reinvent themselves and rectify new constitutions 3 times a month.
Weird take: Brexit continues to show waves of failure year after year. So I don’t think yelling about it or going “I told you so” with a poll is the answer.
The answer is to push the brexit supporters into the ocean.
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He’s obviously joking but Remainers like him and me have a right to be fucking angry. My citizenship of the EU has been lost because of xenophobia and stupidity.
I voted remain and I’m not joking: push Brexit voters into the ocean.
It’d increase the country’s average IQ by at least 10 points and significantly reduce the number of racists and grifters in the country.
(Yes I know not everyone who voted for brexit was racist, but all racists voted for brexit)
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You would make good fish food
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I wonder. In Australia, Germany, and the bulk of the world prices are crazy, due to greed in the covid times.
Are Brits mistaking this phenomena with Brexit?
In Australia we, for the first ever time, have a highly visible homeless problem for example. Houses are not affordable for future generations. Basics are getting out of reach financially.
If we’d had an “exit” of sorts, would we even know if it was the exit, or the covid greed?
I suspect we’d blame it on the exit.
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Maybe in DE and UK, but Australia is a major energy producer, compared to our population. That doesn’t hold up for Australia, NZ, etc etc
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Australia, no clue mate ;)
It’s the drop bears.
That makes sense. I didn’t click that you might have thought Austria.
However the bulk of Australian natural gas is contracted to be shipped overseas (mostly to china), so despite the abundance of the resource it’s mostly not available for local usage. Besides even if it was world market prices will prevail. If you think Clive, Woodside or Gina are going to cut a discount to the aussie public when they can make more shipping it overseas then I have a bridge for sale
Ahhh I was hoping am Aussie would chime in. Totally agree.
WA is the only state to enforce a minimum domestic percentage. QLD for example, has screwed us (qlder here). The Russian gas drama actually impacted us a little, which is madness considering the volume we produce.
Love our corrupted “representatives” working hard for us.
We know it’s 99% COVID not Brexit issues.
It’s a lot easier for politicians and capitalists to blame brexit (a choice made by the people) rather than their own utter cockup of handling covid.
It’s not just COVID. COVID just accelerated a crisis of capitalism that was already underway around the world. And Brexit didn’t help.
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No shit, Sherlock. The rest of the educated world could see the shit-show that would ensue. I guess it’s good they finally caught on.
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Reminder of the vocal minority. The number of instances people can say this exact statement to ranges across the world UK with Brexit America with Presidential Election, Russia with the War, China and Japan’s financial situations. It’s not that people caught on, it’s that whoever holds the cards are catching on
Excellent. Labour, the next government of the UK, will see this polling in the guardian and campaign on an easy win to rejoin the EU?
Will they fuck. Both Labour and Tories want Brexit votes in the North and poor areas of the country. Hence neither will do anything but more Brexit. The sad thing is that people will still vote Labour in massive numbers and keep us in Brexit mode. Get used to it lads… a decade or two more of this.
What’s the alternative? With fptp it’s labour or Tories and it takes a major shift to make one of the other parties a threat.
Labour and Tories both benefit from fptp so there’s no way theyre ever going to change it.
The alternative is that Labour immediately upon getting in says: Right lads we’re going back in because it is clear the damage to the country is too immense - you’ll thank us in five years time. If they do this immediately they might stand a chance in the election after that. Clearly 50% of the electorate will still vote for them based on the referendum results and even more now according to these polls for them to win the election after next.
So the alternative is for Labour to do what is best for the long term health of the country and not simply themselves.
What the aristocrat with messy hair lied?
Shooting themselves in the foot sucks, world shocked with surprise
It exhausts me how dumb the country I live in is (the US) and I appreciate that there is another country out there that can at least make me feel a little bit better about how dumb my country is.
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You cooked it, you served it, now you eat it.
The problem with a failing economy is that it’s very hard to get it back on track. Where Brexit has truly failed us is in accountability, as those that made the decision and pushed the populist opinion to leave won’t see many hardships from it.
IMO, a Labour government should look to reverse Brexit in everything but name. Set trade deals, introduce freedom of movement to allow British people to take opportunities in the EU for higher salaries (a reverse on the last decision), and push it as a win for trade. As for accountability, many will disagree with this, but I think the only way out is to remove the pension lock and start taxing those that have holdings. Set a cap on the price of second homes to reduce by 1% every year (so people don’t immediately sell to the cash rich and crash the market, but not slow enough that savings are secure), and invest heavily in growing economies.
Many don’t think Starmer will be progressive, but given his record and reputation in the CPS, I think he might be playing things safe until an election is won. I have surprisingly high hopes for a Labour manifesto, if independently coated.
Destination of a sunk cost facility but hey nearly a decade on let’s not upset the unicorns
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A clear majority of the British public now believes Brexit has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration, according to a landmark poll by Opinium to mark the third anniversary of the UK fully leaving the EU single market and customs unions.
The survey of more than 2,000 UK voters also finds strikingly low numbers of people who believe that Brexit has been of benefit to them or the country.
Just one in 10 people (10%) believe leaving the EU has helped their personal financial situation, against 35% who say it has been bad for their finances, while just 9% say it has been good for the NHS against 47% who say it has had a negative effect.
James Crouch, head of policy and public affairs at Opinium, said the perception of Brexit being handled badly and having had negative effects on various aspect of UK life appeared to be spreading: “Public discontent at how Brexit has been handled by the government continues, with perceived failings even in areas previously seen as a potential benefit from leaving the EU.
“Half (51%) of Leave voters now think that Brexit has been bad for the UK’s ability to control immigration, piling even more pressure on an issue the government is vulnerable on.
“This shift in sentiment may be particularly stark among the ‘red wall’ voters who rallied most eagerly to Johnson’s banner four years ago, but have been most exposed to rising bills and collapsing public services since.
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