‘Please don’t go’: Spiegel magazine urges Brits not to leave

A week after Angela Merkel intervened in the Brexit debate to say she hopes Britain stays in the EU, Germany’s Spiegel magazine has also waded in. The magazine’s headline is certainly emotive: ‘Please don’t go’, it urges, in an issue which includes several pages in English in a bid to reach out to Brits.

As with the clear-cut message on the front cover, the magazine’s poll on whether Germans want Britain to stay in the EU is also conclusive. Spiegel’s survey, conducted by TNS, showed that 79 per cent of people in Germany thought Britain should remain in the EU. It’s possible that this attitude derives from the popularity of the EU in Germany (in the same poll, just 13 per cent of Germans wanted their own country to walk away from the EU). But it’s obvious, too, that the magazine is attempting to convey an affection and a genuine will for Britain to remain in the EU.