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...)

Just seen this:

UK could quickly re-enter EU with ‘Switzerland plus’ deal, senior MEP says | Brexit | The Guardian https://share.google/sLlL8vXLjjPJK0OhI

A few weeks ago I would have said that this debate was purely hypothetical because there was absolutely no chance that Britain would rejoin the EU anyway.

If it is a serious proposal, this Switzerland Plus" deal sounds very tempting, if a little bit too good to be true.

Mind you, the way things are going - in France especially, at the moment - we could be of use to them.

FOM was a factor and likely remains so. Burnham said the opposite to Makerfield after all, if he was confident enough ‘had died’ as is reiterated on these threads he’d not have said what he did. Labour red wall MPs would have to sell FOM in.

Good point. He was pretty disingenuous to his voters. Another slippery politician.

The morning after the referendum, I walked into my usually quite bouncy Year 12 media group and I can only describe the mood as depressed and grief stricken.

Yeah, my DC (at Uni at the time) were devastated. So were many of their friends.

I do agree (as I said earlier,) that if there was another referendum, that the vote would be to go back into the EU.

I agree that most of the 59% expressing the view that we should rejoin (not "voting" - we don't have the opportunity to do that at the moment) probably don't understand the issues. It's a complex issue that shouldn't ever have been put to the public vote.

What most people will be basing their opinions on, I suspect, is the fact that Brexit hasn't delivered the sunlit uplands that they were promised. They were sold a lie that the EU was the cause of all of their problems and they believed that their lives would get better as a result of leaving. They now understand that that was a lie.

Most mainstream economists agree that there has been economic damage done by Brexit. They don't necessarily agree on the extent of that damage, but the overall consensus is that it has been damaging.

I think there was a lot of scary misinformation about what would happen if we left that turned out not to be true. Eg immediate recession and the country in danger of collapse or invasion. A few young people I knew who had very vocal parents who voted remain were absolutely terrified after the vote which was a bit unnecessary. Adults need to be a bit more balanced about what they claim sometimes.

Idk ten years on and we’re seeing very unhappy students in France rn. Things change.

I’m not sure. The hard right political scene in Germany bothers me as does all the unrest in France.

Couldn't agree more with this. 👏

Agree with this too.

To be honest, when I woke up early in the morning, the day after 'the vote' I was like .... 😱

(I voted Remain...)

.

But the country is in a mess, there's news articles everyday about companies and entire business chains going bust, most of our heavy industries are disappearing and big manufacturing companies don't want to set up any operations in UK anymore because of Brexit, it's closed lots of farms, chop shops, sea food factories, food shopping is hideously expensive and as climate change messes with our ability to grow we become ever more reliant on our neighbouring countries! According to racists we are being invaded! We've certainly got a big illegal immigrant crisis we never had before we offered the jobs out that the EU workforce left behind.

Brexit seems to have improved the services industry though?

Unfortunately Covid happening almost immediately after we left (finally) means we will never know what may have been regarding Brexit. Covid is what wrecked our economy and people's attitude to work. IMO obviously but I think it's fairly obvious. And weve never had a PM that really went for the Brexit opportunities. So it's something that could have been great at the time, but we had the wrong people in all the important positions. And an EU that wanted to punish us rather than make things work for everyone. And an Irish leader that wanted to make life difficult unlike his predecessor who was much more practical about the issue of the border. Thats just life obviously and a counter factual so fairly pointless to dwell on it I suppose.

I would like the UK to be in the European Union. I am an european who has been living in the UK for 20 years and it hurt when people voted to leave.

However, you already voted, you cannot be voting to change these kind of things every few years depending on who is in government. And who makes you think the European Union will want the UK back? It would be a joke having contries in and out as they please. Accepting the UK again would set a bad precedent and other countries would get the idea that they can do what they please at any time and can change their minds. What was voted was voted.

Services industry has boomed since Brexit. And there are many reasons for the problems you list unconnected with Brexit although Brexit may have been a factor. I'm not talking up the economy under this government obviously. They have destroyed jobs and businesses by their actions. But thats them not Brexit.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack

Are you seriously suggesting that the MPs should have just ignored the referendum result and done what they considered to be right?

As per the 2015 EU referendum act, MPs were not obliged to implement the result. That 114 MPs voted not to trigger Article 50 is proof that they were obligated to accept the referendum result.

Further proof is the fact that between the 2017 and 2019 general elections, a period of two and a half years, MPs introduced extensions and the Benn Act. Both of which were an attempt to overturn Brexit. If, as you suggest, MPs were obligated to accept the referendum result, why did they do that?

Not gonna lie, my DH voted Leave, and was dancing around the house with sheer glee and joy when the Leave vote won.... Euphoric he was! Now, even he says we may as well have stayed in the EU! Like many others he has seen no benefits, and regrets his Leave vote. (We're in our mid 50s, and were in our mid 40s then...)

Plenty of benefits if he turns his mind to it. Rather than just focusing on the queues at passport control which I admit can be annoying.

Shame Starmer shafted the fishermen for nothing in return, really. That was the sign of things to come I think. How the EU will treat the UK when we come grovelling back.

I do believe it’s very difficult to evaluate the exact impact of leaving. There are far too many other variables at play.

I absolutely believe trade and industry could benefit from being part of the EU but I don’t want the EU making policy decisions about the U.K.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack

The vote should never have been put to the public as most people clearly didn't understand the choice that they were making.

Why not? The same question was asked in 1975. So, if okay in 1975, why not in 2016? The answer is simple. The elites heard what they wanted to hear.

Also remember, that had the 16.1 million who voted remain in 2016 voted for the Liberal Democrat party in the 2019 general election, this thread would not exist as UK would not have left the EU.

How come we have had virtually no economic growth for the last decade if our main industries have “boomed”?

Your response rather suggests that you don't understand the economic analysis. Which is fair enough. Most people don't.

If you have been looking to see a 2–8% drop, then it sounds like you haven't understood the point that economists have been making. The estimates are not about a drop, they are about comparing the growth that we've actually had against the growth that economists believe we would have had if we had stayed in the EU.

The economic reasons for that analysis are fairly straightforward. More trade barriers mean higher costs and fewer opportunities for investment and specialisation.

You keep mentioning Germany, but Germany's economy isn’t interchangeable with the UK's and it isn't valid to treat it as a control group - there are too many variables. The fact that we may have "tracked" Germany's growth rate previously isn't evidence that we would have continued on the same trajectory, for all that you might like it to be.

And yes, AI does seem to be contributing to UK growth, and lighter regulation may well help with that - time will tell whether or not lighter regulation is actually desirable because there are obviously ther factors to consider in this. I'm not sure what the evidence says at this stage about exactly how much of the growth attributed to AI can be linked to Brexit - would be good to see your evidence on this.

Good question!

Thank you so much everyone for taking part in this thread. Obviously it's full now, and the result is clear. Almost 4 out of 5 would rejoin the EU! (If the terms were fair of course...) And if they would have us back LOL! 😆

Good debate. Thanks everyone. 😘

:)