The problem Liz Truss faces over Brexit is that it isn’t ageing very well

Being in the EU is the more popular option in polls now, writes John Curtice, because those who did not or could not vote in 2016 – such as younger people – support rejoining by more than three to one

Liz Truss and her government have to deal with the still-polarised views on Brexit (Getty/iStock)

It is widely assumed that the debate about Brexit is over. Neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats show much interest in revisiting the issue. Remain voters, it is argued, have accommodated themselves to what has happened. As a result, one legacy that Boris Johnson will be able to leave his successor, Liz Truss, is that, arguments about the Northern Ireland protocol apart, Brexit has indeed been done (although the recent turmoil in the financial markets has again brought the issue to the surface).

Yet this is not what the polls tell us. Rather, they indicate that the decision to leave the EU is as unpopular now as it has been at any point since 2016 – and that the Brexit ballot may prove no more successful in resolving the issue of Britain’s relationship with the EU than its predecessor was in 1975.

Polls of how people would vote in a referendum on whether the UK should rejoin the EU or stay out are, in truth, somewhat thin on the ground these days. Nevertheless, the average of the last half dozen polls (all conducted during the summer) puts support for rejoining the EU at 54 per cent, while only 46 per cent want to stay out. That is the highest level of support for going back into the EU since the UK left at the end of January 2020, while support for remaining in the EU was never higher than 54 per cent before that.

This picture is confirmed by the responses that YouGov has obtained to a question it has asked on a regular basis since 2016. On average during the summer as many as 50 per cent have said that “in hindsight” the decision to leave the EU was wrong, while just 37 per cent say that it was right. The gap between these two figures has never previously been that wide.

Not that there is widespread regret about the Brexit decision among Leave voters. Indeed, recent polls suggest that while 75 per cent of those who voted Remain would now vote to rejoin the EU, at 78 per cent, the proportion of 2016 Leave voters who would vote to stay out is slightly higher. Rather, being in the EU is the more popular option now because those who did not vote in 2016 but express a view support rejoining by more than three to one.

This group of non-voters consists of two different sets of voters – those who were eligible to vote in 2016 but chose not to do so, and those who were too young to vote six years ago but are now old enough to do so. Those young people who could vote in 2016 and did so were much more likely to vote Remain than Leave.

It thus should not come as a surprise that those who have come of age in the meantime take much the same view. On average in the polls, more than 80 per cent of those 18- to 24-year-olds (nearly all of whom were too young in 2016) who express a referendum preference say they would vote to join the EU.

The problem facing Brexit is that it is not ageing very well.

John Curtice is professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, and senior research fellow at NatCen Social Research and the UK in a Changing Europe