The public are ahead of the politicians on Brexit

Imagine a country that tore itself apart in a bitter and divisive constitutional referendum that led to several years of ill-tempered parliamentary wrangling, protests and ugly culture wars. Imagine that such was the impasse that the following general election, three years later, was fought on the single issue of that referendum outcome and implementing its result in the hardest way imaginable.

Then imagine that, at the next general election, just five years later, none of the political parties mentioned it AT ALL. Nix. Nada. Nothing to see here. We have always been at war with Eastasia. What an absurd country that would be, eh?

The Conservatives are so proud of the signature agreement of their 14 years in office that they have resolved never to mention it again. Keir Starmer has so convinced himself that it remains hugely popular with working-class northern voters that he remains schtum. Even the Liberal Democrats, theoretically the most pro-European of the main UK-wide parties, are so proud of their policy on rejoining the single market that it makes page 112 of their manifesto, behind deciding which TV channels football matches should be on.

And yet where is the public on this? The latest British Social Attitudes survey, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and published this week, shows just one quarter of British people now think the UK should be outside the European Union.

According to the survey, support for being outside of the EU has fallen dramatically since the 2019 election. Back then 36% said Britain should be outside the EU. Now the figure stands at just 24%. And while 51% thought the economy would be worse off because of Brexit in 2019, that figure has now risen to 71%.

Mike Galsworthy, chair of European Movement UK, has said: “Throughout this general election political candidates of all parties must acknowledge the elephant in the room – that Brexit isn’t working, and that public opinion is shifting.

“Just 24% now think we should be outside the EU. Brexit has failed. It is doing severe damage to the UK every single day. If there were Brexit benefits to be had, we would have seen them by now. There’s a reason that the current government’s election campaign has not talked about Brexit benefits – because there are none to talk about.”

He’s right. Even Brexit’s biggest cheerleaders no longer pretend there were any tangible benefits to their pet project. Here’s Suella Braverman, former home secretary and quite possible next leader of the opposition, posting on Twitter/X this week to mark a visit to the constituency she’s fighting by “our Brexit hero” David Frost: “We must protect all that has been achieved since the 2016 Brexit referendum: no Customs Union, no Single Market & no European Court of Justice”.

Those aren’t achievements. Those were means to a supposed end the Brexiteers promised us. Nobody’s life has been improved in any meaningful way by leaving the customs union or single market. That’s like slashing the tyres of your own car, being asked what the benefits were of slashing the tyres of your own car, and replying: “I have slashed the tyres of my own car.”

The disconnect between the public and its politicians on Brexit is widening. People can see that it has failed and nobody is willing to talk about it. Were Starmer or Ed Davey to speak forcefully about the UK’s future relationship with the EU they may be pleasantly surprised at how it would be received by a public way ahead of their representatives on this one. Their only other option, to quote Bertolt Brecht, would be to dissolve the people and elect another.