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Brexit: More than half of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU, poll finds

According to YouGov, if a new referendum on EU membership was held then a majority of Brits would vote to remain

Matt Drake
Tuesday 18 July 2023 14:56 BST
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The majority of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU, with more than 60 per cent believing Brexit to have been more of a failure than a success, according to a new poll.

A YouGov poll, which surveyed 2,151 adults last week, found 51 per cent of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU, while 32 per cent would stick with the 2016 decision to leave the bloc.

Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of those surveyed said they consider Brexit to have been more of a failure than a success, while only 12 per cent said they see it as a success and 18 per cent as neither a success nor a failure.

Some 70 per cent said they believed the government is handling Brexit badly, YouGov said.

It comes after former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who was a prominent figure in the campaign to leave the European Union, proclaimed Brexit to be a failure.

Speaking on Newsnight, he said the UK had not “benefitted from Brexit economically”, claiming that government policy had deterred businesses from investing in the UK.

When it was put to Mr Farage that polling appeared to show an increasing number of people who voted for Brexit now regret the decision, he replied, “I don’t think that for a moment".

But the YouGov poll suggests that a number of Leave voters have changed their minds since 2016.

The results show that 18 per cent of Leave voters now say that they would vote to Remain were the EU referendum being held now. Almost three-quarters (73 per cent) say they would still vote to leave the EU.

Back in January 2021, 81 per cent said they would still vote to leave the EU, while 9 per cent would have changed their vote.

Currently, 57 per cent of Britons polled said the country was wrong to vote for Brexit in 2016. This is the highest figure YouGov has recorded to date, the pollster said. In comparison, one in three (32 per cent) think it was the right decision. One in five Leave voters (19 per cent) now say it was the wrong decision.

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