Public opinion on leaving

 Briefings for Britain today has a link to an article by D Frost, a lead negotiator during Brexit, on alittle-discussed issue so far in the sly campaign to Rejoin. What terms would the UK be able to get if they rejoined? We have already seen ridiculous terms to join European defence pacts/banks (£6.5bn as I recall). What would further integration involve?

Frost quotes from a recent speech from Sikorski, the Polish Foreign Minister:

To those who want to go further and rejoin (in truth, virtually the entire Cabinet), he points out what we all know: “Britain will not get the same deal that it had before.” He tells the British political class to “internalise ... the fundamental European deal that you get more benefits in return for more pooling of sovereignty”. He underlines our past opt-outs from the Schengen passport-free area and from the Euro (let us pass lightly over the fact that Poland has no such opt-out but has still not joined) and our budget rebate. “You wouldn’t get that kind of deal today,” he added 

 

Frost also clarifies the usual stuff about how rejoining the EU is now popular among UK voters. It might well be the case that they say that leaving was the wrong decision (in fact, they seem to say that leaving has done harm or damaged the economy which are different issues), but rejoining as the way forward does not follow. There is less support for that. Frost again

The other good reason is that British voters are not ready or willing to do it anyway. A poll last autumn from Queen Mary University of London showed that. Asked about 20 different policy areas relevant to EU decision-making, including some of those Sikorski mentions, clear absolute majorities of voters wanted decisions on 17 of them to be taken by the UK government only. Even among Labour voters that was true of 15 of them. That’s why Sikorski is right to say “you probably would reject the deal”.

 Frost continues:

We know the answers to these questions. The truth about the EU’s current structure – the unelected Commission accumulating discretionary power, the EU courts expanding EU powers beyond treaty limits, the fiscal rules bypassing national parliaments, the migration policy overriding democratic mandates, the rule-of-law mechanisms deployed selectively against political opponents – is that none of it has ever been properly discussed or endorsed by most European voters. Who knows whether... [voters would]... really endorse the “deal” and its consequences for their daily lives? 

I looked up the poll from Queen Mary Uni It is a YouGov opinion poll of 4534 people, with all the usual reservations, including rather small numbers in some of the cells. They mention one problem -- they did not ask directly or immediately about Brexit voting preferences for fear of a 'tribal' answer that would distort the responses. The results are still interesting:

[There has been] public dissatisfaction with Brexit since 2020 and a decline in support for Leave since 2016.... Conventional interpretions [include] that voters regret leaving the EU, there has been too much change [departure?] from EU membership, voters decided to go back to the way things were. [But there are] alternative explanations:the British public are dissatisfied with Brexit because not much has changed since leaving the EU, the Government has not made much use of new policy levers.

They asked people for preferences in 20 policy areas – should these be decided by the UK Government alone, cooperation with other governments, or with the EU. There was a majority for UK alone option among all parties (NB the numbers in some cells were very small).

Of particular policies, there was majority support for railway nationalisation (75%) , employment law (68%), refusing entry to criminals (67%), state aid for regions (66%) , immigration rules (58%), controlling the export of live animals (53%). All got majority support except AI regulation, data protection, trade rules (47%–44%). 

There was not much difference between the social classes. Even Remain voters supported the 'UK alone' option (below) in 15 answers These are, like opinions on all general policy statements, pretty ambiguous of course. How can you largely disapprove of the export of live animals yet not largely disapprove of trade rules. And we all know how trade rules and immigration policy have been connected. Maybe the percentage orders can also be taken as rank orders of importance?