It has been five years since the UK voted to leave the European Union, and the country remains divided on the issue. According to a recent analysis paper released by UK in a Changing Europe, a series of surveys conducted since the autumn of 2016 show that the majority of the public have not changed their minds about the merits of the decision to leave, with over 80% of respondents saying they would vote the same way again. However, a narrow majority for Remain over Leave has consistently been found in these surveys.
The paper also looks at how well voters think Brexit has been executed. Even when optimism was high at the beginning of 2017, slightly more respondents thought the UK would get a bad deal than a good one. Following the unveiling of the free trade agreement with the EU, the proportion of respondents who believed the UK had secured a bad deal remained at 36%, while only around one in five thought it had obtained a good deal. Even among those who voted Leave in 2016, only 35% believed the UK had obtained a good deal.
The public’s expectations of the consequences of Brexit have also been analyzed. Shortly before the referendum, nearly two-thirds of voters thought that immigration would fall if the UK left the EU. This figure soon dropped to around two-fifths, but has held steady at 46% most recently. However, the two sides have always had very different views of the economic consequences of Brexit. At the time of the referendum, just over two-thirds of Remain supporters believed the economy would be worse off, compared to just over half of Leave voters who believe the economy will be better off.
The paper concludes that Brexit has not been an unalloyed success from the public’s perspective. Although many Leave voters have retained their confidence that it will bring lower immigration and a stronger economy, many are also far from convinced that the UK has obtained a good deal from the Brexit negotiations. Meanwhile, there is relatively little sign that Remain supporters have come to accept an outcome that has resulted in a markedly more distant relationship with the EU than many of them would like. As a result, the country remains divided on whether leaving the EU has been the right decision or not.