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...)

@SevenYellowHammers are you an EU citizen? Or Brit living in the EU?

British, second generation, connection to southern EU countries. Would live there if I didn’t have caring responsibilities in UK.

The EU doesn’t actually control monetary policy.

That’s controlled by the ECB, which is an independent central bank.

As for trade policy, we probably have more independence now than we would in the EU. However, as soon as you sign a trade agreement, you lose some of your sovereignty over trade.

And the advantage of being in the EU is that the block has more clout in negotiating with third parties than the UK does alone.

True sovereignty, in the trading sense, doesn’t really exist.

Yes but the ECB is one of the EUs institutions, accountable to the EU and isn't going to start acting against the interests of the EU as a whole.

The point is the same. Our monetary policy would no longer be run by us in our own interests. People may be happy with that of course but the example of Greece should make people have a proper think first.

So I can see why you would want the freedom to move to the EU.

I think the concern for many is the number of people who would want to move the other way into the UK, when immigration is currently causing significant instability in many regions. We perhaps should think twice about signing up for more.

@Newbutoldfather

And the advantage of being in the EU is that the block has more clout in negotiating with third parties than the UK does alone

So, how did the EU end up with 15% tariffs on exports to the US compared to UKs 10%?

I would hope for better coordination of immigration under EU. It failed previously and I was disappointed with it.

I would expect and hope for fingerprint/biometric security across EU states to pinpoint people who don’t have EU citizenship. I would expect that employers of illegal immigrants were treated extremely robustly.

I would want to see undocumented people detained kindly and securely and their cases examined individually. Each EU country could take a quota of people who have real need. Family groups should be maintained.

It needs urgently put in place because the climate crisis is going to mean an unprecedented amount of very poor people looking for refuge. With countries like Canada hoping to be associate members it doesn’t necessarily mean Europe would be the only place refugees will go.

Things left as they are will result in the break up of the UK, which will mean we’ll lose north Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which conceivably will be the more habitable parts of UK. We all, the UK, the EU and other moderate non European countries will do better to work together.

ok thank you for clarifying, your comments make perfect sense now.

it is persuading the British with no affiliation to the EU that will be the stumbling block. Most do not want FOM.

@SevenYellowHammers

As long as the EU has higher immigration than the UK, they will be happy to wave them off from Calais. Even Macron has said the UK must reduce the pull factors.

One of those factors is illegal employment. So, I would agree with your comment about employers being penalised. Possible downside is that if companies go bust due to fines, people who were employed legally may become unemployed.

I don’t think Canada will become an associate member of the EU. Their trade with the US is seven times greater than that with the EU.

@EEexpat ,

‘So, how did the EU end up with 15% tariffs on exports to the US compared to UKs 10%?’

It’s the exception that proves the rule!

Trump hates the EU and, although he thinks we are messing up, he has affection for the UK, especially Scotland. With Trump, everything is personal. Once he has gone, things will revert to normal.

The below is a strong reason to not join the Euro or the EU. The EU is really an unfinished project, that no one seems to have a desire to finish and we don’t have the desire to buy into. If the Euro did end up falling apart, it could get very messy.

The more I think about it, the more joining just the single market looks appealing. Our standards are already aligned with the EU, so the only difference is that we would need to pledge to keep them aligned. And we would have to abide by EU trade deals with third parties.

In return we would get 50-60% of the financial losses back. And we would get freedom of movement, which I think would be a positive today.

www.wsj.com/world/europe/france-debt-bonds-spending-c7981557?st=yhr5Md&reflink=article_copyURL_share

You’re probably right on where to draw a line, the issue is Burnham has gone from we won’t look at this at all to yeh the full re-join in four months.

Plus FOM will always be a sticking point for many.

But why? What do you think the EU is doing better? France, German and Spain are all a complete fuck up atm, failing economies drowning in debt, growing discontent amongst the people and a EU-wide shift towards far right political parties. And that's just the headlines

Maybe you just never read the news from Europe, although Andrew Neil, Jason Cowley and Trevor Phillips have all raised these points in the last week.

@Newbutoldfather

Once he has gone, things will revert to normal.

What is normal? Is there an international law that EU shall always have the lowest tariffs applied to them by other countries?

And we would have to abide by EU trade deals with third parties.

So, would trade deals that UK has made with other countries since leaving the EU have to be cancelled?

In return we would get 50-60% of the financial losses back

What are the 50-60% losses? How were they measured (as opposed to estimated)? Who will return these losses to the UK? Will the EU send a cheque?

Freedom of movement, along with adoption of the Euro, Schengen and membership costs estimated to be in the range £20-£40 billion per year (BBC Question Time 24 September 2026), are among the reasons why the UK will not rejoin the EU.

This is a fair point too.

@EEexpat ,

‘What is normal? Is there an international law that EU shall always have the lowest tariffs applied to them by other countries?’

Normal is no or minimal tariffs. Trump’s tariffs are very unusual.

There is no law, but it is reasonably obvious that gaining cheap access to the EU plus UK (which would be the case were we to rejoin) would be a much bigger incentive to another country or trading block than gaining access to the UK alone.

‘So, would trade deals that UK has made with other countries since leaving the EU have to be cancelled?’

I suspect so, though it would obviously be subject to negotiations. In return we would gain access to all the EU deals, though.

‘What are the 50-60% losses? How were they measured (as opposed to estimated)? Who will return these losses to the UK? Will the EU send a cheque?’

The losses since Brexit have been reliably estimated at 6-8% of GDP. Of course , this can’t be proved absolutely, but it is the conclusion of something like 90%+ of economists.

Economic Cost of Brexit

Comprehensive studies over a decade after the referendum show that Brexit has reduced the UK economy by 6% to 8% compared to a hypothetical scenario where the UK remained in the European Union. This equates to a total accumulated hit to the economy between £180 billion and £240 billion, or roughly a £2,300 to £3,700 average annual reduction in GDP per capita. 1, 2, 3, 4]

Research projections indicate the following structural recovery outcomes:
MetricExpected Economic Impact of RejoiningSource / Reference
GDP Recovery
+3.6% boost to long-term GDP (recovering ~£92 billion)
Frontier Economics / Best for Britain
Damage Recouped
~90% of the long-term economic damage predicted by the OBR would be eliminated
Best for Britain
Export Boost
+£43 billion increase in global exports in just the first year
Best for Britain
Trade Costs
Saves 2% to 8% in baseline export costs by wiping out rules-of-origin paperwork and regulatory border checks

I think that, unless you have studied econometrics and can model it better than the professionals, it is hard to dispute these numbers.

We would get it back in terms of increased GDP and tax receipts, which we could spend on things like defence or the NHS.

T

@EasternStandard ,

I don’t really understand why FOM would be an issue. We had record immigration after we left.

And the EU has changed, which means a lot less incentive to come to the UK. Of course, if poor new members joined, that might change the equation, but I am sure that there would be transition arrangements, and Blair’s mistake won’t be repeated.

On a slightly different point, how the EU is doing is kind of irrelevant to the single market. They are still our biggest trading partner by far and friction free trading really matters , as we have learnt.

I agree about FoM. People are talking as if it's now virtually impossible to even go, let alone live in an EU country. You can still do both, and I know many people who do.

Re the benefits of the single market, we would have to offset the costs of losing the post-Brexit trade deals. We would also have to join some of the EU trade deals, which many across the bloc are very unhappy about, like the Mercosur deal.

Brussels also recently almost destroyed the single market by ridiculous over regulation, which requires all producers to register their companies in every country they export to, even within the Eurozone. Small companies have protested that this is insanely expensive and time consuming and in effect prevents them from selling their products to other EU countries. So much for frictionless trade!

They have had a sort of half grudging agreement that they don't have to do it then, but it doesn't put the Brussels apparat in a good light.

All the other trade deals have added barely anything....imho frictionless trade with our biggest trading partner is great. Also you can still trade with the other nations. Just under the deals the EU has.

I voted Remain but would absolutely not vote to rejoin.

It concerns me greatly that there is large and increasing divide between what the majority of the public thinks, particularly working class voters, and what those who work in our public/ government institutions think. This gap is not good for our society or democracy. A move to rejoin the EU would be catastrophic to our society due to the massive increase it would create in that division.

The public and government sector needs to start really understanding the lives. experiences and views of british people outside of their bubbles. The damage caused by the appalling and insulting reaction of remainers after they lost a democratic vote was immense and continues to this day.

I would never vote to make that worse.

Having a cohesive society matters and we need to do an enormous amount of work on multiple fronts to get back to that. Not make things worse by this.

I simply don't believe the 6-8% figures on GDP at all.

Over the Brexit decade Britain has GDP growth largely in line with Europe.

There have also be major GDP affecting events that make modelling extremely difficult, eg Covid, Russian and Iranian wars.

The is also starting to be significant changes in the UK industries like IT (AI) and military spend which affect the economy significantly.

A 6-8% GDP growth would widen our GDP increase over comparable economies like France and Italy even more than it has already. We are now actually projected to take over Japan as the 4th largest GDP in the world. This though is probably more a statement of how bad Japan is rather than how good we are (if we had increased the economy by 6-8% over the last decade then we would be the worlds 4th largest economy now).

The UK economy has definitely changed by sector. We have had significant growth in services for example and that has underpinned the GDP growth. But the idea that it would be that much better if we hadn't left, like project fear, I don't buy it.

It does seem a big claim economically. Why would we be such an outlier?

There are other economists who have posted critiques

All trading blocks are protectionist by nature.

EU trade is frictionless within the EU.

The question is which trading blocks you want to be a part of and which offer the better opportunities for growth for your particular country.

Hint, for the UK it is not the EU. The EU is short on markets to develop growth (which is why it was constantly looking to expand east) and short on natural resources.

The EU implements increasingly protectionist policies in order to protect its own industries. Apparently when the EU does it it is really good. Whereas of course when Trump does it it is really bad.