The economic crisis pushes a majority of Britons to rethink Brexit and the return to the EU

The last to admit a mistake is always the one who makes it.

It is now more than six years since a majority of Britons backed Brexit in a referendum, and more than two years since the United Kingdom finally cast off with the continent.

A pandemic, a war and a recession later, two out of three citizens are in favor of holding a referendum on membership of the EU in the coming years, according to a survey carried out by the consultancy Savanta for

.

There are exactly 65% ​​who want to repeat the consultation, compared to 55% who defended it a year ago.

They differ on the deadlines, because the wounds of years of division and controversy around the most transcendental issue faced by a generation are still alive.

22% would like to vote now;

24% would like to do it again in the next five years;

24%, 10 years from now;

only 4% are given a term of 20 years.

Those who do not want to hear or talk about a new referendum account for 24% of those asked.

One in every four.

And next to them, the main political actors.

The Conservative government of Rishi Sunak - himself, an ardent defender of Brexit since its inception - because it maintains against all odds that the "freedoms" acquired with the separation must still be deployed and exploited.

The Labor opposition and its leader, Keir Starmer, because it refuses to scare away all those traditional voters in the north of England who turned their backs on the left and embraced the promises of Boris Johnson.

“There are no more arguments to return to the EU or to return to the internal market.

But I do believe that there are arguments to implement a better Brexit, to finally make it work (...) We can achieve a better agreement with the EU,

The Labor leader, to whom the polls give an unappealable victory today in the event that general elections are held (they are not scheduled until the end of 2024), will try to adjust his speech to that of businessmen, economists and a majority of Britons who still prefer to use common sense before ideological slogans.

The same consultancy, Savanta, asked citizens about what the future should be for a relationship that until now was basically turbulent.

47% supported the need for closer ties with the EU, compared to 14% who called for an even greater distance.

What is relevant, however, was that 30% of those who voted in favor of Brexit in 2016 —one in three— now want a closer relationship with the continent.

“Polls do not stop suggesting quite consistently that a detectable majority in favor of rejoining the EU has emerged,”

John Curtice, the UK's most seasoned sociologist when it comes to spotting trends or shifts, told

. mood.

“Even if one considers that the current state of the economy has nothing to do with Brexit – something that most analysts would not agree with – it is very difficult to sell the idea that this decision has been a success, when the economy is going down the drain,” says Curtice.

Leaving the EU would have cost the British public treasury more than 45,000 million euros in uncollected taxes, practically the same amount that the Sunak government was forced to raise, to try to calm the panic unleashed in the markets with the tax cut of his predecessor, Liz Truss, in what for many was the last desperate attempt by the conservative eurosceptic sector to launch a deregulatory and savage Brexit.

This is the calculation made by John Springford, deputy director of the

think tank , an organization that maintains critical support for community institutions.

Springfold maintains a mathematical model in which, based on comparing the trajectory of economies similar to that of the United Kingdom in the pre-Brexit period —the United States, New Zealand, Germany or Australia—, it dares to accurately establish the consequences and deterioration derived from leaving the EU.

“There is no doubt that the UK economy has shrunk significantly as a result of Brexit,” Springford said.

“In March 2022, when Sunak was Minister of the Economy, he implicitly accepted the calculations of the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, which anticipated a 4% reduction in GDP due to leaving the EU, and took it upon himself to raise taxes to ensure that public services were financed.

According to my own analysis,

Although it is more difficult to determine the effect of Brexit on the current spiral of inflation in the UK and the cost of living crisis, the

The London School of Economics calculates the cost of the shopping basket for each average British household at least 240 euros extra, in the two years that the United Kingdom has been out of the community club.

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