Brexit regrets? Britain has a few

A creeping sense of Bregret is taking hold in Britain. A majority of Brits now say that the vote for Britain leaving the EU was a mistake. Only one in five think Brexit is going well – and seven in ten say that it has gone as badly, or worse, than they feared.

In the past year alone, there has been a ten-point swing toward rejoining the EU. This is leading to a shift in how the major parties are positioning themselves on the question of Europe. With Labour enjoying a comfortable lead in the polls and appearing to be on course to win the next election, might Keir Starmer’s party pivot fully to calling for a return to EU membership? That seems unlikely, at least in the short term. But, in the aftermath of a Labour victory in 2024, the party might well shift to a more explicitly pro-EU position, pointing to changes in public opinion as the justification for doing so.