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...)

Heaven help us if our theatre of war scenarios are done so weakly. I don’t know how the road back will look but I am certain it will happen.

@SevenYellowHammers im sorry, I don’t understand this sentence.

@SevenYellowHammers ,

To go back, there has to be a democratic mandate, either through it being a manifesto pledge or a referendum.

I prefer a manifesto pledge.

However, democracy matters. I speak to a few people who think Burnham should just take us back in. It would be a parliamentary and democratic disaster if an anointed PM took us back without a meaningful democratic mandate.

*better off WITH free trade and movement.

Bad typo

I voted remain so I was with you ten years ago, but I can see we’re not lagging and that the EU is imposing slowing regulation now and we could diverge even more as tech advances.

Which one? There are two sentences there? Assuming you mean the one about war scenarios, I thought governments would be able to project possible outcomes to big changes and cataclysmic events. But they didn’t seem to have a clue about borders we shared with the EU or how trade would flow or anything. Even if leave was a worse case scenario, they should have played it out before putting the referendum on. The dumb arses!

I thought the EU has a better trade deal with the us than the UK

@SevenYellowHammers thank you for answering my question. I understand now.

You said earlier:
Another referendum doesn’t sit well with me either. I’d hate a rerun of the vitriol that marked the last one.
However your comment about the Brexit arms was quite vitriolic.

Will it serve unpalatable white wine from Norfolk, thick ales and ciders brewed from rats and old men’s pants? How about food? Overcooked scampi, still frozen chips with a gunk encrusted bottle of ketchup to smear over it? Two screens of football playing to no one and some battered St George cross bunting

Well surely acknowledging that our cuisine has improved immeasurably due to foreign influences is a given. And yes, to be honest on the rare occasion I eat pub grub it’s pretty grim.

@SevenYellowHammers ,

Our food has improved immensely due to forweign influences, but that includes Asia and the Americas, not just the EU.

And there are some fantastic gastropubs featuring traditional British cuisine (at a price).

At least we have been more open to influence, unlike France, say, where outside Paris and a few large cities, the cuisine hasn’t much changed since the 1980s.

@Persephonia1966

Not convinced that young people in the UK are interested in the EU. Look at how few used the Erasmus scheme. 18,000 out of a student population of 2 million.

Also, youth unemployment in the EU is almost identical to that in the UK. Factor in higher taxes, I don’t see the attraction.

Yes, I wasn’t trying to say it was just the EU that influenced British food. And I was just joking about the Brexit Arms, sort of hyperbolic rhetoric. I’m sure there must be some pleasant public house experience somewhere in Britain.

@EEexpat I’m now watching the documentary - thanks, onto the second one now.

Again, this shows a multitude of factors - a lukewarm Corbyn, a Remain campaign without a stirring “heartwarming” message, misunderstanding of how the minutiae of and emphasis on economics from Remain would land, aggressive (and untrue) Leave advertising about Turkey etc.

Regarding Obama, the take seems to be not
about him “lying” (your words - aka giving his view) but that his comments were seen as interference by some. Could have been seen as interference if he’d said “Leave - Great idea!” too.

I note that Johnson and Farage disagreed about how much they had coordinated/spoken. One of them is lying.

@SheilaFentiman

I remember from the documentary that Obama asked if it would help if he said UK would be at the back of the queue if they voted to leave the EU. Cameron and Osborne said it would help to weaken leave argument about a deal with the US. Turned out that UK did get a better deal with the US compared to the EU.

There was actually two leave campaigns. One by Johnson and Gove in the red bust. The electoral commission nominated them as the lead campaign for leave. Second campaign was Farage in a blue bus.

Remain campaign was very poor. It concentrated on theoretical negatives if the vote was to leave as opposed to benefits of remain. Might have been a different outcome if they had focused on the positives.

However, none of that answers the OP question, would you vote to rejoin the EU in another referendum.

My answer is no. Several reasons:

EU is forced to offer the worst deal possible.

If there is a second referendum and the vote is not to rejoin, will there be a third, fourth, fifth ad infinitum?

The same round and round arguments again will paralyse the UK.

No evidence that UK is lagging behind the EU.

The EU is not the same as it was in 2016 as right wing parties are on the rise.

@EEexpat but Obama could only answer for
himself. Not for a future president, particularly a Republican. So your implication upthread that this was a lie was an odd one.

Having just watched it, the dialogue as relayed by Cameron/Osborne was along the lines of them saying to the President “leave say that they will make a great deal with the US if we Brexit, what do you think?”

Obama replied, jocularly - “heck, no, you’d be at the back of the queue”

Which then led onto Obama asking them “do you want me to say that?” for the upcoming speech.

It wasn’t something that Cameron scripted and Obama said without believing in the words.

Turned out that UK did get a better deal with the US compared to the EU.

Which unfortunately aren't worth the paper they are written on for either the EU or UK. I don't think that's Leaves fault as I don't think anyone predicted the current ahem situation. But I also don't think the "deals" the UK was able to strike on tarrifs with Trump prove anyone wrong.

I also think a factor in Leave winning was the Guardian trope taken up by the Remainers that Leave voters were all racist, stupid and did not know what they were voting for. I bet a few voters on the fence came down on the Leave side due to being so irritated by such arrogance.

As someone who really does not want to rejoin, I am heartened to see those old tropes being resurrected in the hope they will mean Stay Out will win again. One particular person who is implying that Leave voters were stupid and could be influenced by a bit of Russian chat rather than be able to understand issues such as sovereignty by thmselves, is Andy Burnham who, by claiming that the Russians influenced Leave voters, is directly insulting the intelligence of his own constituents who voted resoundingly Leave. Long may he continue on this path.

It’s always going to be a volatile world though. There’s usually at least one stupid man causing havoc and buggering the economy. That’s why I believe we were in a stronger position inside the EU. There’s been some oddballs (and some of them ours) leading EU countries but generally they’ve been decent to one another. Even Maloni’s done with Trump.

AB publicly states the obvious that Russia was working to influence Brexit. As confirmed by MI5

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/13/russia-brexit-eu-referendum-interference-mi5

The subheading is clear

Ken McCallum says Kremlin attempted to influence vote through social media and TV reports but had little impact

As are other parts of the article, where the chief of MI5 says that Russia shouldn’t be given an overrated sense of its own importance (obvious why he wouldn’t want that) and that this shouldn’t be used to reopen divisions in the UK (obvious why he wouldn’t want that either).

I have no particular view on how much Russia succeeded in influencing votes - I didn’t include them in my list of factors upthread - but they certainly tried, as they have in various global
elections since.

As a general principle, if you think that public messaging from both sides influenced the vote (immigration queue poster, the Boris bus, the messaging about the economic issues from remain) then I don’t really see why it is offensive to consider that social media messaging (from either side) might also have been influential on some voters.

Anyway, night all 🙂

@SheilaFentiman

It wasn’t something that Cameron scripted and Obama said without believing in the words.

Watch the waffly way Obama said it in April 2016. No conviction at all.

@Persephonia1966

But I also don't think the "deals" the UK was able to strike on tarrifs with Trump prove anyone wrong.

It proves that being a member of a large bloc does not guarantee greater bargaining power.

@Pineneedlesincarpet

I bet a few voters on the fence came down on the Leave side due to being so irritated by such arrogance.

I would bet too.

Top marks to Fiona Bruce on Question Time tonight.

One of the panelists quoted the YouGov poll which shows support to rejoin the EU is 59%. Fiona had to remind them that the figure drops to 35% if UK did not get the same opt outs as before. Not a particularly high percentage I would say.

I remember that the YouGov poll showed 31% thought their household finances would improve if UK rejoined the EU. Again, not a particularly high number.

So 59% of people wish that we could now have what they voted to get rid of 10 years ago?

The people were asked to make an irreversible decision that they didn't really understand. Unfortunately, they were easily manipulated and they made a very stupid decision. Now that they have experienced the impact of that decision, they find they don't like it, and they wish that we could go back to what we had before. But we've can't get back the brilliant deal that we had before, because we burnt our bridges.

I guess that just goes to show what an almighty fuck up Brexit was, and how culpable the Brexiteers were.