Would you vote to re-join the EU in another referendum?

[GorgeousSpringtime]

Simple question. If there is another referendum to re-join the EU, will you be voting to re-join?

This isn't to have a go at anyone who supported Brexit, or who supported Remain, it's just a quick straw poll. Thank you.

If anyone is wondering, (or cares!) I think I will vote to re-join. (I won't say at this point what I voted for last time...)

‘What makes you all so sure EU would even want you back? Leave when it suits you and join again when it suits you. On your terms and conditions, not so sure.. 🙂’

This rather stupid and vindictive idea needs to be put to bed once and for all.

The UK is still a powerhouse economy, much as people may want to run it down. We still have the 5th biggest GDP in the World (!) and would rank 2nd in the EU after Germany. We would be a net contributor of several billion, into an area which needs money and we would increase the EUs both soft and hard power tremendously.

Macron has already commented that he would welcome us back and Sanchez said he would ‘welcome his arms to a brotherly people’. Germany has also said ‘we will do everything we can to get the uk back into the EU.

So, I think it is safe to say we would be more than welcomed! What is true, though, is that we would not get à la carte terms. We would not get the rebate that Thatcher negotiated and we would, in theory and over time, have to join the Euro.

I am still not a massive fan of the EU in many ways. I still believe that is has a democratic deficit, ceding far too much power to less than competent (and often corrupt) bureaucrats. Also, it is neither a free trading area or a federation. At some point, much as it doesn’t want to admit it, it will have to choose.

However, it had been proven beyond doubt that we need free trade with the EU, and a close friendly relationship. I suspect we could get to a Norway or Swiss type deal relatively easily and quickly (still years, but maybe 5 or so?). Rejoining fully would open a lot of old wounds and maybe take a decade.

Susanne Baumann, the German ambassador to the UK has also been positive.

“For us Germans, the UK is an integral part of Europe – its history, its present and its future. I was therefore glad to hear the Prime Minister speak about different options for the UK’s relationship with Europe,” Ms Baumann said on Thursday.

No.

I voted to stay in, but I wouldn’t vote to go back now. The terms will be very different, and I don’t want to join the Euro.

@Pineneedlesincarpet
”As soon as he announces another referendum we can forget anything else being achieved in this country for years.”

Which might end up being the diversion they need when they are exposed as incompetent.

That’s a few PMs who are centrist or left. It’s a big bloc.

Macron will be going soon. Merz is struggling.

A few EU countries have their own domestic problems atm

@EasternStandard ,

Germany is the main net contributor to the EU.

Which countries do you think would oppose us rejoining? My guess is none.

The bureaucrats might be less friendly but they would be told firmly to get back in their box.

They are and Merz’s party results recently were dire. Politically he’s up against the further right and left.

It’s mostly centrist or centre left welcoming now, I’d like to know more from anyone who could veto.

Well we would need another referendum to ascertain whether people have changed their minds. And then have them regularly just to check. What if we decided we didnt like being back in as the terms were so punitive and we had to take in a lot more immigrants for example. Another referendum as to whether to leave?

We are an adult country and need to own our decisions and get on with it.

And, just in time, to remind us all of the dangers of the Euro, a proper EZ bond crisis is brewing.

French year bond yields are up 4bps at 4.96% whereas Bund yields are down 4bps-a flight to ‘quality’. These are relatively small moves so far, but France crossing 5% would be a big headline.

The Euro is also weakening against both the USD and GBP.

As I said, small moves so far, but it can be like the start of an avalanche. I hope, for the sake of all our investments, that it isn’t. But it is a really strong warning not to join the Euro.

Definitely agree on that last line.

Debt to GDP ratio is even higher in France , and likely others I haven’t checked, too.

Isn't this the same mistake as the first Brexit vote, where people voted leave without any serious plan or details of what Brexit would look like. This then led to the complaints of "this isn't the Brexit I voted for" - which of course is going to be impossible to achieve when every leave voter had their own view on what Brexit should look like.

To have a rejoin vote now without an agreement with the EU on what exactly "rejoin" would look like would simply repeat this mistake.

Emotion based politics and voting got us into this mess on Brexit and emotion based voting would get us into another mess on "rejoin".

Yes.

I voted remain but was open minded that maybe leavers knew how to build something better with our new 'freedom'. That has not happened.

Despite the EU's flaws, we are stronger together, particularly with the US becoming such an unreliable partner. The issues facing the world (climate crisis, wars, all the changes and risks brought by AI, etc) are easier to tackle when we're united into a bigger group.

I'd love to regain freedom to easily work there.

Plus, I feel European. I want to be British and European, not just British alone.

I want to rejoin. But - we had a great deal before we left and I can’t imagine we’d get that again.
So at this point I’d settle for a customs union at bare minimum.
I do miss though freedom of movement massively within Europe and hate the fact they took that away from my kids which may well tip me into supporting a worse deal than we had previously if it comes to it.

There were so many errors last time, but we did get exactly what ‘we’ voted’ for.

The idea of a referendum was awful, on a fairly technical issue. The consequences were also poorly explained to the electorate. We also had king grifter, Boris Johnson, campaigning for ‘leave’ even though he didn’t believe in it.

Some kind of super majority should also have been required, either 60% plus of those voting or 50% of the entire electorate.

However, virtually no one who voted leave wanted to stay in the single market and keep freedom of movement. Nor was the referendum regarded as advisory or optional, even if it was in law. A ‘soft’ Brexit would have been a betrayal and just caused simmering tensions.

However, 10 years have gone by now, and the country has changed its mind, at least about the single market. That is perfectly legitimate. If it is in the manifesto and Labour are elected in, they have every right to negotiate to rejoin either the single market or the EU (whichever they put in the manifesto). We are a parliamentary democracy and that is how it works.

@ManchesterGirl2 ,

How do you ‘feel’ European?!

It’s could be too open and broad. I don’t want the euro so a vague idea of options isn’t attractive.

Plus Burnham’s words are too empty on this, he could rule something out then change in a few months. Empty promises re the euro aren’t enough.

@EasternStandard ,

I haven’t found Burnham’s words to be empty so far.

Regardless, you can’t do something as big as either rejoining the single market or the EU without it either being a manifesto commitment or the subject of a referendum.

So he couldn’t put that we would rejoin the single market in his manifesto and then, on a whim, go for full membership. It just doesn’t work that way (and the Lords could put a real spoke in the works too if it wasn’t in the manifesto).

I have family members in France, speak a couple of European languages, have done work placements in France and Germany (while we were in the EU) and made a lot of friends there. While I've travelled to other continents too, and met wonderful people, I've felt a closer cultural overlap with other European countries.

So personally my sense of my identity in the world is European as well as British.

Every post like this restores a cm of my sanity.

Thank you.

No one should be for or against rejoining at this point. We need to treat any such moves as completely independent from what we did previously and make judgement based on actual substance.

Our entire problem with Brexit was the total lack of substance. If we had had it before the vote it may either have been a different outcome or matters would have been resolved without the degree of political turbulence and fuckwittery we experienced.

The golden rule is the markets like stability and known factors so they can calculate risks based on that.

It is all about risk management.

Currently the risk levels along multiple lines of crucial global factors are all sky-high. Only one has to break for there to be major problems. We know there will be global issues with famine next year already so this alone is a significant concern. The last time there was a bad harvest it resulted in the Arab Spring and we already have massive destabilisation in the Middle East.

Everything says we will HAVE to work more closely with the EU regardless and they will HAVE to work more closely with us. It won't be optional. This also means that the value of rejoining the EU maybe somewhat diminished anyway and we may well be better cutting out a unique partnership agreement - which the EU will be more receptive to due to the significant change in circumstances globally.

This isn't 2016 and we really really need to keep the mistakes of the referendum front and central together with a clear understanding of the current economic and geopolitical situation. This is 2026. It's a totally different world. More so than many care to admit as there's this rose tinted idea that we can return to somewhere between 1997 and 2012 and a time when everything seemed a lot better. This isn't realistic. It's as much of a fantasy as the fantasy many leavers had pre ref.

I live in the EU, but was ineligible to vote in the first referendum, which I thought was extremely unfair.
I now have dual nationality, so, in that sense, have retained my freedom of movement.
However, I was quite shocked at the propaganda being bandied around against the EU 10 years ago and at the number of people, who were gullible enough to think that leaving would boost UK finances by however many million per week. This does not appear to have happened.
I am still disenfranchised, so would not be able to vote in a second referendum.
I do think the UK shot itself in the foot, as I cannot see any advantages gained, plus the UK is now out on a limb and doing the "pick me" dance around the world.
I find the very obvious increase in US influence detrimental.
Personally, I do not think there will be a second referendum and, even if there were with a different result, I no longer think the UK has sufficient political negotiating skills to rejoin on acceptable terms. Would the EU even want this?

I feel a lot like this but I'm also conscious that part of this is a shared European middle class identity which isn't shared with everyone and doesn't necessarily serve the best interests of everyone too. If you step outside that bubble you find people who are very different and don't share the same shared vision and priorities.

I have a number of very good friends in Europe who I visit and stay with and we have a huge amount in common. I'm also aware they aren't necessarily representative of everyone in their country.

It is important we don't forget this because you end up ignoring pretty critical problems when you are closed minded to differences of opinion.

I am very pro EU on principle. I feel in practical terms the situation going forward may require deeper consideration though.

I have to ask to all those who love Europe so much why didn't you move after the referendum and before Brexit took into place?

Your poll is as unscientific as the actual Brexit referendum that caused this shit show in the first place. It's not as simple as in / out; we need to know the terms of what that means.

However, I have voted to rejoin in your poll, because that's my gut instinct - but I would want to know what we were signing up for, not have it all hashed out badly afterwards like Brexit was.

I would love to rejoin to regain freedom of movement - but I am not sure rejoining would be great for the cohesiveness of the country. I think (like the Brexitieers did, I am feeling nostalgic and "wanting my [pre-2016] country back". Unfortunately the rightwing racist genie is out of the bottle now and that's never going to happen, just as Brexit didn't bring back 1950s Britain.

They have been as he ruled out what he’s proposing now.

If he can make statements on not re-joining and switch in four months he can do the same re an early GE or the euro.

Referendums are a universally terrible idea so I hope there isn’t one.

It’s offering massive social and economic decisions to a swarm of people who have no idea what they’re voting for and what the real consequences would be.

Even now, people are keen to right the perceived wrongs of leaving the EU and think rejoining will somehow erase the last decade or so and we’ll go back to how it was. But that’s a pipe dream and I think they’ll be a lot of disappointment about our benefits. The world has changed. Perhaps it is in our best interests to be in a common market but I think we’ll be the poor relations for a good long while and public opinion will very quickly change about it being quite such the cure-all.

I would like freedom of movement though.