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In a poll fielded between March 27 and April 5, Bloomberg put the question to 1,037 eligible voters across the U.K. As a check on the accuracy of our sample, researchers asked them how they voted in the Brexit referendum and the 2017 general election; the result mirrored those results. They asked people to imagine it was 2020 and Britain had now left the EU. In that situation, how would they answer the following: Should Britain join the EU or not? In answer, 47 percent said that the U.K. should not join the EU, 31 percent said it should, with the remaining 22 percent undecided.
The 16-point margin against rejoining arises because of the way different groups of Brexit voters break. Of those that voted for Brexit, 84 percent would oppose joining, with only 4 percent supporting it. Of those who originally voted against Brexit, only 61 percent would support joining, with 16 percent preferring not to reverse the original decision. Those that didn’t vote in 2016 (including those who were too young) split fairly evenly between joining, not joining, and undecided.
People aren’t always good judges of how they’d feel in a hypothetical situation, but there is a reasonable chance the hypothetical will arise in this case so it is not difficult to fathom. What the poll highlights is the interaction between Brexit views and partisanship. Among 2017 Labour voters, very similar proportions of Remainers said they’d support rejoining (71 percent) as Leavers who say they’d oppose it (72 percent). But among Conservatives, 40 percent of Remainers would support rejoining, while 91 percent of Leavers would oppose it. [...]