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Redfield & Wilton’s Brexit tracker polls for UK in a Changing Europe can be found here, and the data tables can be downloaded here and here.
The British public’s decision to leave the European Union in the referendum of 2016 was far from the end of the discussion around Britain’s future as a member state. The debate has continued to trundle on, albeit more quietly compared to the period of parliamentary chaos which occurred between 2017 and 2019, with support for the prospect of re-joining the EU continuing to rise. Currently, support for re-joining the EU (49%) is higher than support for staying out (35%) which has been the case since July 2022.
Labour has ruled out any attempt to re-join the EU, at least in the near future, as well as the prospect of single market or customs union membership. But even if they did want to re-join, the way back to full EU membership is difficult – something acknowledged by both Labour and the Conservatives as part of the Better Together Campaign in 2014, in which they highlighted that the route to membership would be difficult for an independent Scotland.
To become an EU member, prospective member states need all current member states to accept their application. This is particularly difficult given the diverging interests of the 27 member countries, not least because the UK’s withdrawal from the EU has meant a gain in representation in European Parliament and greater influence in decision making in Council for some member states. As time moves on, the UK is also diverging from EU standards, suggesting that the way back to membership would be difficult.
The public, despite their seeming desire to re-join the EU, acknowledge that this is a demanding process. A poll conducted by Redfield and Wilton for UK in a Changing Europe, shows that just 27% of voters think it is likely that EU member states would accept the UK’s application to re-join the Union.
But what actually is the state of play? Do EU member states want the UK back? The answer isn’t a straightforward ‘yes’ or ‘no’. There is some support for the prospect: the European Free Alliance (EFA), a European Parliamentary group of regionalist political parties and part of the fourth largest parliamentary group in the EP, had stated that the ‘EU must also be sure to never close the door on the peoples of the UK’.
Indeed, most European Parliamentary groups have included something on closer UK-EU ties in their manifestos for upcoming European Parliament elections. While a particular area envisaged for closer cooperation is defence (EPP), as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Free Alliance, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and the Party of European Socialists all want to develop a closer relationship with the UK.
In September last year, a research group also floated the prospect of Britain becoming an ‘associate member’ of the EU, allowing the UK to participate in the single market whilst requiring the UK to contribute to the EU’s budget and be governed by the European Court of Justice.
Yet in many ways, Brexit has strengthened the EU. Firstly, Britain leaving the EU removed a country that was frequently an obstacle to progress, or at least made cooperation more difficult. For example, as Prime Minister, David Cameron vetoed a new EU-wide treaty in 2011, designed to salvage the single currency. Without the UK, the EU has continued to deepen the single market, and the Eurozone has more power to drive economic and financial policy...
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