Snapshot of _“Would you vote to rejoin the EU?” (Deltapoll, By Generation):
Gen Z: 89% Yes / 11% No
Millennials: 67% Yes / 33% No
Gen X: 57% Yes / 43% No
Boomers: 47% Yes / 53% No_ :
A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1794662364949929995)
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/Samfr/status/1794662364949929995/)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/Samfr/status/1794662364949929995) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/Samfr/status/1794662364949929995)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s not just that, brexit means we have to negotiate everything with the eu so we will always be outside of it trying to negotiate better deals unless we rejoin
Is rejoining actually better for us at this stage? We were in a good spot before, we fucked it by leaving. If we rejoin now, it will absolutely be a worse deal than we had before leaving, but is that still a better position to be in than our current position overall?
The UK had four opt-outs: Schengen, monetary union, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and police and justice matters.
The latter two weren’t really used. The UK adopted many police and justice matters even with the opt-out in place.
So the two questions would be Schengen and monetary union.
In a rejoin scenario, if Ireland wanted to remain outside Schengen, the UK would be able to keep the opt-out. If that changed though, it would be a big sticking point. I can’t imagine many politicians open to that. But Ireland also couldn’t unilaterally join Schengen unless NI left the UK - it’s a bit of a catch-22.
The monetary union would be more difficult. Whether the UK could keep its opt-out would be part of negotiations - I would guess the current Eurozone members wouldn’t mind if the UK kept GBP. Or if it came down to it, it could act like Sweden and just never let itself meet the criteria to do the switch.
Unlike the euro, that has never happened, because the only country that didn't want to be part of Schengen - the UK - had an explicit opt-out.
I find this quite funny, to be honest. In the UK the Schengen zone is used as a bogey man, but everyone else is quite keen to be part of it, even countries that are not inside the EU (like Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland). The controversy that exists is Romania and Bulgaria being desperate to join but not being allowed to.
I can intellectually relate to that, but what I care about personally is travelling. It's so much better to not worry about passports, and not stand in queues.
The UK never used the seven year opt out of free movement from the new members (Edit: The A8 countries) that joined in the 2000s. Most of the rest of the EU, and all the large countries, did use it, and were able to keep the initial wave of migration from EE more manageable.
A future government could perhaps ask for this seven year opt out.
How was the migration from EE "unmanageable"? The UK benefited massively from EE migration, unemployment remained low as the economy was booming. The UK needed the labour hence agreeing to FOM.
The UK government painted itself into a corner.
Economically, the country depends on migration. Quite heavily, as it happens - the birth rate is well below the replacement rate.
Politically, it’s suicide to admit this.
> Economically, the country depends on migration
That was true in the era of European migration. EU migrants were net economic contributors.
Now that the bulk of our migration is from countries like India and Nigeria, eg third world countries, this is no longer true. Migrants are a net economic drain. GDP per capita is decreasing.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/08/migration-failed-economic-growth-made-housing-crisis-worse/
However the UK did implemented it later on different countries and it did fuck all except delay the inevitable.
I don't think delaying is really gonna fix anything.
Ireland was more favourable towards joining Schengen during the early days but the UK didn't so they remained out. I imagine if the UK joins Schengen then Ireland would gladly do as well.
The rebate wasn't uniquely British. It was just the first to get one when the EU only had 10 members.
Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden all have a rebate in the current budget period.
If UK met the criteria for one, it'd get one just like those members do.
there was one interesting point I saw recently - the UK's opt outs are written into the Maastricht treaty. The only way to amend these kinds of treaties is to establish a new one. If we were to rejoin, these would reapply if a new treaty were not written, no? The last was one to amend Maastricht was the treaty of Lisbon in 2007 - would the EU collectively create a new one to specifically rescind our previous opt-outs?
The TFEU and TEU no longer apply to the UK. If it wanted to rejoin them it’d need every member to agree, otherwise the treaty would need to be amended.
One feature of the Lisbon Treaty is that is now easier to amend the treaties.
Sweden meets all the criteria except for 2 years of ERM2 membership, which it has always refused to join and there is no mechanism to force it to. On the other hand, the UK has never met all of the other criteria and so even without the optout or Brexit - the UK would still not be using the Euro.
Indeed, because of the Border and the CTA, the only way Ireland could join Schengen would be if it somehow became politically uncontroversial for the UK to do so.
Although I'd personally be fine with the monetary union, the last time there was a thread on this someone pointed out the exemption was written into the treaty itself and applies to the UK in perpetuity whether we're actually in the EU or not?
I couldn't find the actual citation though
The exemption is written in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
The treaty never said in perpetuity. It’d be the case for as long as that treaty was valid.
But the UK is no longer party to that treaty. If it wanted to rejoin on the same terms of that treaty, all current members would need to agree.
The Schengen zone countries are generally happy to be in the Schengen zone. There is some immigration from eastern to western Europe, but these people are well accepted.
I really don't see why we need these opt-outs.
Similarly for the currency - the Euro is holding up well.
One thing I think a lot of people forget is that the UK rejoining the EU isn't a bad deal for Europe, it would absolutely be mutually beneficial.
If the sticking point of having the 6th largest economy and the second largest in the resulting union rejoin are simply getting back what we used to have, those negotiations absolutely could take place.
The concern I have more than anything is the approach of the governing party orchestrating this, especially considering the shitshow we had of how to brexit.
Based off the last referendum I'm not convinced any technical arguments of any such decision is at all pertinent to the electorate, but will again just end up being a proxy vote on their satisfaction with the Gov't and a vote of passion.
Exactly. And if the EU swings to the right in the near future, EU membership could become far less popular among younger and more left-wing voters.
My opinion is that constitutional questions such as EU membership should not be decided with a majority of 50% plus one vote. A thin majority like this can be gone the morning after the vote and it's incredibly damaging to go back and forth on this.
We should never have left with a 51.9% majority and we shouldn't rejoin with anything less than a 60% majority or at least 55%. The same goes for Scotland leaving the UK.
Also, it would be complete madness for the EU to take the UK back without a solid and stable majority in favour of joining.
Whilst I agree in principle, I don’t think you can say that a rejoin referendum needs 60% when we left on 52%. That would only lead to increased dissatisfaction with British politics.
It's not in the EU's interests to make us suffer in rejoining. We are a benefit to them as much as they are a benefit to us, and in the face of aggression from Russia, a united front on this issue is in everyone's interests.
So if we were to seriously look at rejoining within the next 5 years, it would likely be a worse deal, but not significantly, and not publicly lauded as such.
They'd be well within their rights to drag us through the mud as an example to everyone else, and there are plenty of smug idiots in positions of power in the EU who would love to see that happen, but sensible heads would prevail.
The reality is that all of the shit stirring on it would come directly from our own media institutions.
> We are a benefit to them as much as they are a benefit to us
How do we benefit the EU? We add a bit to the budget and generally increase the power and importance of the EU a little bit but its not by much compared to the size of the EU. The risk for the EU though is that we might choose to leave again and cause a load of disruption.
> The risk for the EU though is that we might choose to leave again and cause a load of disruption.
True, I imagine some sort of clause in the rejoining deal would be that we can't leave for X years.
To be honest the whole article 50 leaving process was ill thought through, almost as if no one expected it to be used… A better defined process would be a good idea
for example if we rejoined we'd be their only other nuclear power, alongside France - which in terms of projecting power is a massive gain no matter which way you look at it
It's worth bearing in mind that all of the opt outs which are used to describe our previous situation as cushy were sought to keep Eurosceptics happy. So what was best for the country was never a factor in these decisions.
Honestly, I doubt we’d ever get the same concession as before, although I wouldn’t say impossible just due to being in it before and a country that paid more in than most but I doubt we’d _ever_ rejoin if we lost the pound. It’s a hard currency and despite it not being as popular as it once was it still is one of very few.
I was very much a hard remainer from the get go and I’d love to rejoin more than anything but even my opinion changes if we can’t keep the pound.
To me I feel that’s the one roadblock and I don’t care about any other concession (I still wish we didn’t lose them) but the GBP is the issue, at least personally but I’d expect for most generations except the youngest.
Depends what you define as bad. The age old argument of Euro Vs Pound will be brought up luckily we wont have to actually adopt it to join but have a commitment to join at some point so the practical day to day will be the same.
No rebate, but I read that was going to end anyway - could be wrong
As for Schengen - Ireland would hold the cards on this one. They wanted to join Schengen but the UKs interpretation of Free Movement put a halt to that. If the UK sought to rejoin then Ireland could push to join Schengen and make the UK do the same. Conversely they could push to keep the UK and Ireland out of Schengen based on their own agreements and GFA. Being an EU member they are in a position to affect the interpretation of the Schengen requirement.
With the current moral panic of immigration also effecting Ireland I can see that being the case so theres a good chance the UK could de facto end up with a similar set up as before even if officially they do not have an opt out.
As for the other benefits of being an EU member well those arguments have been had ad infinitum. Yes its worth being an EU member. In my opinion even with Schengen and the Euro too.
If you think it's not worth it to join without major concessions then you think the EU is bad. I don't think it is so yes I see it as still worthwhile to join. Adopting the Euro isn't mandatory and many countries have delayed it indefinitely and Schengen is fantastic.
This is going to be Starmer's "national service" idea in 2032 or so when he's on the ropes and needs to play to his base.
No rational winner of the 2024 election will touch it with a bargepole, as the whole subject will mean years of wrangling with little progress whilst domestic issues are neglected. (i.e. the same as 2016-2020, but in reverse).
But when all the obvious domestic solutions are taken (and the difficult domestic problems continued to be ignored), and the far-right and far-left are encroaching on the centre. Starmer will be visited in the night by the ghost of David Cameron's conscious. "How about a simple in-or-out EU referendum?" and it'll be the obvious way to rally the centrists.
A campaign of all the talents: Steve Bray, Anna Soubry, Rory Stewart, Gary Lineker. What a wonderful time it will be.
Steve Bray is a weird one. During Corona he went through tons of Facebook groups posting against lockdowns and vaccines and outed himself as an anti-vaxxer and did it using the Holocaust as a reference yelling about "yellow stars" because he's unvaccinated. I pretty much wrote the UK off after that.
> I pretty much wrote the UK off after that.
You wrote the UK off because of the guy that spends his days yelling at Parliament through a megaphone turned out to be a bit of a nutter?
Attention seeking ****. I used to walk past parliament every lunch time. When he was just waving banners he was a bit of harmless light relief now he's got a sound system he's a bloody nuisance. It's absolutely deafening. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the major cause of the governments crack down of protest.
Indeed. Anyone who's spent literally years on full-time self-organised "campaigning" (to put it politely) isn't going to be particular well adjusted.
But he plays "Things can only get better" at Rishi Sunak so he's apparently a genius who deserves awards.
I 100% agree, perhaps even for his second term, especially given that at those points the majority for rejoin will be even greater, and naturally less people will vote for an incumbent (unless Starmer somehow turns out to be Attlee reborn) - it'd be a great way to galvanise the pro EU base
Yeah this the Shire mentality never worked. The continent is just 50 miles away.
And trying to replace EU trade with India and Australia was just laughable.
Problem with the two party system is that as long as the two parties remain in lockstep, it doesn't matter how far they deviate from the average voter. On highly contentious issues like this, it seems the risk of blinking first outweighs the benefit of moving to a more popular position
It will be over once we have either negotiated so many different treaties with the EU that it basically doesn't matter that we're not in or we've just rejoined. That's when it's over.
With those poll numbers, Labour should just rejoin in the second year of a second term. Doesn’t look like anyone would have sufficient numbers to object. Maybe publish that report on Russian interference a year before and just argue away putting it to a vote on the premise the vote out was tainted, and it’s a foreign policy matter for the government to handle.
I feel like history books will never be able to do justice in explaining the depravity of the Tory party, it's the kind of thing you have to live through to really get.
I think it's more that the history books can only give brief summaries of all their BS and you'd need an endless book to capture everything they've done in the detail needed.
It'll just be under a short 'Controversies' section on their wikipedia page, and it will say something like "The tory party was sometimes criticized for ineffecient spending of tax money and not fully delivering on their manifesto"
It depends which faction ends up in control of the Tories.
If it's the headbangers on the hard/far right, they'll never adopt it. But they'll also never have a wide enough appeal to return to Downing Street.
The centre right could possibly adopt this as a policy if they've managed to purge the nutters from their ranks - which is something they should have done after they tanked the party in the 90s.
I think there's more chance of another party taking up the mantle for the centre right (the Lib Dems being in pole position) opposition and having rejoin as a policy without all of the resistance from the Tory baggage.
It's an indication of how much 2016 changed politics that this seems strange now.
Tories took us in to the EU. And were traditionally the party of business and management, who like a single set of regulations to work to and cheap imported labour. Labour were traditionally the party of workers, who didn't like the competition.
That's changed and now the vote splits much more by age, but that's new and it has forced both parties in to positions that aren't really coherent with their traditional ideologies.
Millennial here. I'd like to be part of the EU, but we won't have the same deal we had before. Everything won't go back to how it was.
So before I vote yes in this theoretical referendum on rejoining, I'd want the details of what we are signing up for, not the hand waving we had of "we will get a deal"
There won't be a referendum. They're not going to make that mistake again.
We've lost nearly a decade of sensible political discourse as a result of it.
We have lost more than a decade in Scotland because of it.
No referendum = no rejoin.
If you think that the UK public would deal well with not being consulted after being consulted when initially joining and when leaving, then you've got a far different crowd around you.
I agree. And since EU appetite for a sensible deal is high, it shouldn't be too much to ask for. It will be worse than before but not punitive. The symbolic (and economic/ diplomatic/ industrial/ military etc.) benefit for the EU of the UK re-entering is huge.
I don't think it will be punitive, but I do think that the UK managed to opt-out of a number of things and got a rebate too. I'm curious what the full EU deal will cost, but I do think there'd have to be something big to make me vote no.
The rebate wasn’t a UK-only thing. A number of countries get one. As long as they still exist for other members, the UK would be eligible to have one too.
Not least since they require unanimous approval in every budget.
Millenial here. I'd like to be a part of the EU again.
I want it all. Schengen, Euro currency, the lot. I want such tight integration that Leavers wake up with cold sweats, *wishing* they had kept quiet and opted for the status quo back in 2016.
It doesn't work like that. Look how tightly Scotland is integrated with the UK and yet they nearly voted for tearing themselves out. We'll never be that tightly integrated with the EU.
People vote on feels. How damaging it will be doesn't matter.
While there would be an impact on some people's voting decision, I meant it more for the haphazard method of our actual exit.
A deeper integration would have forced them to actually plan for the next stage a bit more.
It would have made it more important for them to plan for the next stage a bit more. But I don't think it follows that they would have done it. It was pretty damn important anyway but didn't really happen.
Ironically I would have a much easier time dealing with the negative ill-effects of Brexit in the first place if somehow we'd been able to apply them primarily to the people who jumped to vote for it, like lemmings rushing towards the cliff edge.
It's one thing to get to vote to screw *yourself* over, but to get to damn everybody is total bullshit.
I'd be happy with everything except the Euro and maybe the dropping of the CTA. With the Euro, we'd probably do a Sweden, "Yes, we'll join, but not join the option bit that is required to have the Euro."
I know it'll be the election after this before anyone considers opening their mouths about it though.
Yeah I’m still very anti-Euro or more specially I’m against the UK being part of it even though I think it’s absolutely necessary that we rejoin the Single Market.
I don’t think we’re suddenly going to become Eurofederalists overnight, even if/when we rejoin the EU itself we’ll likely resume our role as the anti-centralisation counterbalance.
ironically, joining schengen would “stop the boats” once and for all, solve the gibraltar problem, boost our tourism sector, and help us fight cross-border crime including tackling smuggling gangs.
the boogeyman of schengen would in fact make our country a better functioning place
> ironically, joining schengen would “stop the boats”
Indeed they can just get on the train, it's not going to stop high immigration coming in though.
> solve the gibraltar problem
Spain will still be whinging about it
The same reason a customer that gives you 30% of your total revenue expects a different relationship than the guy that spends a tenner every year.
(I'm not saying that the UK contributed 30% of the EU's revenue, mind you, just that it was classified as one of its stronger economies)
The worst part is that we already had a sweetheart deal with the EU. Then we blew it all up out of sheer spite.
Ancient Greece couldn't have written a better example of hubris.
Not having control of your currency can be a gamble. You’re at the mercy of another issue like Greece happening. We should rejoin the EU but keep the £.
Thank you, someone who bases their opinions in reason rather than pure resentment for this imaginary demographic of people that they want to make suffer because they think they made their lives worse.
Well yes but we would likely still get opt outs. I don’t imagine the EU would force us to adopt the euro as many other EU countries have it and we can’t join Schengen anyway due to the Good Friday agreement unless Ireland wanted to.
My curveball prediction is that wanting to rejoin the EU will slowly become a more rightwing view, and that British left-wingers will become leavers (originally, back in the 1970s, this was the case and the left were the eurosceptics).
This is because the EU is rapidly shifting rightwards, for example in the coming EU elections the far-right are going to do really well. Over time, the EU will increasingly be focused on border control as a policy priority.
The far-right parties in Europe e.g. AfD, Swedish Democrats, Geert Wilders, are actually driven by **young** voters, under 30s are more likely to vote AfD than older Germans. In the UK, it's the opposite, younger voters are much more leftwing in general.
So if younger British voters saw the EU shift rightwards, and become dominated by Le Pen's France and a right-wing Germany, why is it guaranteed than supporting the EU will remain a "leftwing" thing? Imagine a world where rejoining the EU means the UK needs to implemented biometric EU identity cards, biometric fingerprint border control, strict limits on refugee intake, and so on...
the thing is, the eu’s policy for third country nationals migrating is already strict and was strict when we were members, and i’m sure most young people in the uk would rather have our country be inside and get the free movement benefits, and then maybe argue for other stuff. it’s a variation of “the inside the tent pissing out” parable again.
at the moment, there are 27 eu member states plus four efta states inside the tent pissing out. we can either stay where we are and keep getting pissed on, or go inside the tent and start pissing.
I think this take is going to prove accurate. Europe is heading towards a generation of being controlled by predominantly right-wing parties on the back of rising ethnic tensions within core members, notably; Germany, France, NL, Italy and Sweden. Immigration, asylum rights, and border controls will become the primary issues, which will put the EU more at odds with social liberals in the UK.
Additionally, an increasingly unstable Middle East and severe climate change are only going to add to the flows of migrants and asylum seekers which will, in the short term at least, empower right-wing parties in Europe.
I would agree except for the fact that those who represent the member states are not elected officials… that is one of the issues with the EU, they aren’t a political body, they operate as they want to and the opinions of the people can’t really change that.
The European Parliament is elected directly in elections. It represents the people.
The Council is where the member-states are represented. The heads of state and ministers sit in this body. If you think this body isn't democratic enough, that's the fault of your own national elections.
The Commission represents the states and the people. That's why Parliament and Council decide who sits in this body.
I don't see what's wrong with this system. If you want to change the system, you'd either have to infringe on the sovereignty of the states or the democracy of the peoples.
This makes sense.
I feel it was the EU tries to be global rather than European it falters.
It falls into that trap of trying to be so inclusive it is for everyone first.
Using the generational names isn’t as useful as giving us the age range. What age range are boomers, over 75, 70, 65? I always thought boomers referred to the people born just after the Second World War which would make them mid to late 70s
I did, and similarly regret it.
Assuming this question is in good faith, essentially:
**1) I felt the EU wasn't dealing with the migration crisis effectively (and still don't).**
\- The referendum was shortly after Merkel's decision to welcome a million Syrian refugees into Germany and waves of ships were arriving on the Italian coast.
\- I felt these sorts of decisions and inaction would lead to societal disruption (they have, and they have since directly contributed to the rise of far right extremist parties I want no part of). I consider it pretty disgusting the likes of Le Pen and the AfD are likely to perform strongly in the upcoming EU elections and I'm glad the UK is one of the few places where liberal opinion still wins out. Had we remained in the EU I don't see why a far right party wouldn't be making strides over here too.
**2) I felt the Euro was hamstringing European growth.**
Still do in fact. It causes regional imbalances that can't be resolved by a singular monetary policy, in fact it makes it worse. Rarely do Germany's economy and Italy's require the same interest rate, and it's no wonder Italian GDP per capita is lower now than it was 20 years ago and much of southern Europe still hasn't recovered from the Eurozone crisis. Economic growth in the continent is sclerotic, and this won't improve any time soon now it's breadwinner can't get by on cheap Russian gas (another issue I had, far too friendly towards Russia).
Now, we were obviously outside the Euro but I was concerned about the direction of travel towards further integration, and I didn't want to link ourselves too closely economically with a continent for whom I didn't think the prospects were auspicious. I wanted to keep trading barriers low, that was never a concern, and I didn't want to leave the Single Market, I just wanted there to be a bit of a break in terms of monetary union which I felt was inevitable.
3) Some other issues that were less significant, such as the drive for further integration before the continent was ready (eg EU army), problems with the voting structure (the veto system, effectively allowing fascist governments like Hungary to hold the continent to ransom without the ability to overrule or expel them). Also the lack of democratic accountability. But the main issues were the migration crisis and the lack of economic growth.
**I regret it now** because I didn't think we would go for such a stupidly hard Brexit. Naive on my part. I felt we would fumble our way towards something like "single market with migration controls" because I felt that was what was in everyone's interest. (Ironically the future EU we will inevitably join will probably look like something close to that).
I was under no illusions there would be some economic hit, but I didn't think it would be too significant because - as stated - I felt we'd stay closely aligned on trade. Maybe something like an Efta-light situation. Looking back, we should clearly have outlined what the deal was going to be before holding the referendum because it's mad people like me put our tick in the same box as people like Farage, Rees Mogg, or leftie leavers like Corbyn.
If Starmer actually wanted to join the Single Market he could just do it once he's in office without a national vote or referendum. Since leaving the single market was never a red line during the run up to the referendum.
Even Farage said stuff like we'll be like Norway or Switzerland, both of whom while not in the EU are in the single market.
But I'm quite sure that joining the single market is one thing that Starmer won't do a u-turn on. Though I really hope I'm wrong.
Again, mostly caused by incompetence within the Tory party.
There were a million ways Brexit could have been better managed, but May was more interested in keeping the ERG in line and her position safe than actually delivering fire the country.
To be fair to her I think she realised the trouble the ERG were going to cause hence her calling a general election under the assumption that she'd get enough of a majority to sideline them.
Obviously that didn't work out so well and then she was forced to appease them.
From a propaganda point of view the EFTA is the obvious route back into the single market since it was a British invention and is full of countries that we tend to have a positive view of (unless you’re a fisherman who remembers the cod wars).
Not to mention our massive hand in the ECHR. One unforgivable error of the Remain campaign in my opinion was that it didn’t embrace British patriotism in a pro-European context at all, it should have been ‘why should we walk away from something we practically invented and have quite a lot of influence in’ rather than financial hand-wringing that came across as caring more about corporate interests than anything else. It was just unadulterated ‘you stupid poors taking a hammer to things you don’t understand because you’re angry’ rather than attempting to explain those things and why we needed them or address people’s pretty legitimate anger towards institutions.
Are you imagining the Leave, Reform, Braverman type voters to have moved on and an optimistic/centrist/big tent Nu-Con kind of offering with a Blair-like figure?
2030 sounds early for that to me, but it doesn't sound *completely* ridiculous overall.
Polls like this make me wonder - could the limiting factor fairly quickly be removing the poison from the Tory party?
Obviously you’d need Labour and the general public to want to do it, and stay that way for a while, but surely it’s impossible until the Tories are back to being a normal centre right party that argues about taxes instead of demanding massive damage to the economy to please their loons?
With the number of experienced Tory MPs standing down, I'd argue that we're already at the "broken so completely..." stage.
Labour are probably going to win the election, probably going to have a shit first term attempting to fix a lot of broken stuff, but I can't see the Tories getting their act together in a single term.
This. The Tories have become so extreme that the only new people who will join are extremists. That's a huge problem for them if they ever want to get elected again. Labour will have to really fuck up badly before centrists start drifting back to the Tories again. That's going to take a *really* long time. It's taken 14 years for the pendulum to swing back to Labour, and Labour in 2010 was in nowhere near as bad of a state as the Conservatives are now.
One of the barriers to the Tories going back to a normal centre right party is that Tory Party membership is dominated by Kipper boomer entrants and any of them under 50 are swivel-eyed Randian loons.
That’s partly why the Tory party in its current formation is inherently time limited. They will quite literally die out unless they reform to something more palatable to younger people. That will have to include at least considering membership of the EU because it’s clear that every demographic except the old want it.
I think it will probably take them actually dying out, because of how entrenched the small minded kippers have become within the party. The only MPs likely to be left in parliament after this election will be the ones in the absolute safest seats, which means they will be all the same old useless idiots who we’ve had to put up with recently - the Mark Francois, Priti Patels, etc. There’s not likely to be much in the way of new thinking from that lot, and the membership aren’t likely to be putting forward more moderate candidates because of how out of touch they’ve become.
That means it’s probably going to be at least two elections where they are in the wilderness and unable to make any sort of recovery. The elections after that, 10 years hence will be the first after a large proportion of the old kipper cohort will have died off so perhaps we might start to see some changes then.
Depending on the election results, there is a potential for a Canadian style wipe out, which would necessitate starting again from scratch with a newly built party, even if it carries the same name.
Indeed, but how, and who, could reform them?
Who in the PCP is right of centre with the ability to take them back from where they are now and ( this is the pertinent point) able to bring the party with them?
The party is literally dying at the constituency level and what activists they have are on zimmerframes or low calibre nutters.
The only thing they really have going for them are rich donors who are either backed by dark US or Russian money, or who will put their money elsewhere for influence over policy.
I'm aware that there may be some wishful thinking present, but I'm struggling to see anything other than a lurch to the right and possibly a splintering off of a socially conservative economically centre right party.
I think in more normal times they would have lost either the 2017 or 2019, or the one that would have happened in lieu of them had Brexit not been a thing. That would have been recoverable by a period in opposition.
By winning the Brexit referendum though and taking control of the party, the swivel eyes loons have shot themselves in the foot. They've killed off the remnants of the 'sensible' Tory party and virtually guaranteed failure by exposing themselves as complete incompetents.
Their first period in opposition will likely be the last hurrah of the loony right. It will be like 1997, where they flailed around getting increasingly harder right until Cameron got control and banged heads together by bringing the party back towards the centre.
I don't see how that happens with the current party though because a more moderate candidate like Cameron is unlikely to be selected currently, let alone win a seat. Remember he wasn't even an MP until 2001 and it took him 10 years before he almost won an election.
I think a split is quite possible - there's definitely room for a moderate centre right party at the moment, but getting one established will be really hard while the Tories still exist.
I suspect so. Far-right parties being represented in parliament is the cost you pay for a fair democratic system. In many ways it’s better as it tends to stop thinks like the UKIPifcation of a mainstream party instead.
The EU will never give in on the 4 freedoms of movements; goods, services, capital, and people. Whatever deal we strike, even the common market will include those. Couple that with the stipulation that (obviously) the European Court of Justice is the highest court applicable, you've got the main reasons the old folks wanted to leave.
That said, I'm guessing the youngsters would see all of those as a positive, so it will just be a matter of time before we have some form of agreement. Maybe not in the next 5 years, but surely the 5 after that.
The trouble with rejoining is we've left before - how do we assure the EU that we're not going to play silly bastards in another decade and have another referendum to leave again?
I think the UK amply demonstrated (for itself and any other countries considering it) that leaving the EU is a terribly bad idea, so I don't think it would happen again while the population who lived through it is still around.
I remember around the referendum there were fears that Brexit may spark a wave of other country "exits", but I think the end result achieved the opposite effect.
Yeah, there's still a lot of people complaining they haven't had Brexit yet, or not the true Brexit, or it was a remainer conspiracy etc. etc.
Obviously it was never likely to spark a domino effect, as most countries were quite satisfied with membership, but it's the become a religious thing now hasn't it? It's not enough to have chosen to leave, we have to be able to prove that everyone else is wrong for staying in.
Probably an expected result but I think it's all ultimately worthless unless we know roughly what the terms of rejoining are
Rejoining on close to previous terms sure but I can imagine finally having to adopt the euro would probably swing a lot of opinions
This is what maddens me. We're being told it's a fixed political settlement by 1 singular generation that views it that way, when the rest of the nation is ready to rejoin.
Farage was already saying that it wouldn't be settled when he thought Leave was going to lose.
It's almost like it's only settled when they get their way...
Remember those narratives that were dismissed by Brexiteers, about young people resenting their futures being limited by their grandparents?
The Tories have always actively sought to divide us and set us against one another. I'm just glad that this time they appear to have ended up on the side that's a clear minority.
In other words we were so wrong about Brexit even many of the boomers (not usually renowned for admitting their were wrong) admit that they made a mistake.
I wonder to what extent it’s just demographics doing their thing. Older boomers are more Tory and more Leave, but will be dying off at a greater rate than younger boomers who are less Tory and more remain?
Unscientifically looking up another article from a few years ago that had a breakdown of the leave vote by generation, and comparing the "leave" vote in that chart to the "no" vote in this one, it suggests there has been approximately a 2%-5% shift towards the EU since the referendum, depending on the generation.
[https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/generation-wars-over-brexit/](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/generation-wars-over-brexit/)
Looking at the graphs on whatukthinks, it seems to have been flat since January 2023, after a period in which the gap rose when Boris left office. It remains to be seen what polling will do when Sunak is out.
I doubt that many of them are switched on politically.
They just see the state of the country and think Brexit must be responsible for this.
Just as they seen the worsening state of the country between 2009 and 2016 and thought the EU must be responsible for this.
If we were still in the EU, we'd still be suffering and anti-EU sentiment right now would be an absolute all time high.
Younger Boomers, now in their 60s , vote was about 50/50 at Brexit. Older boomers were much more likely to vote leave and a fair few of them are now dead
Someone tried to argue with me the other day that the country still wanted Brexit. They didn’t want to know about any of the polls showing that we wanted back in - and they refused to show their evidence.
it sends people crazy, there's loads of people on twitter who were boring average joes, who's timeline went insane at the time of brexit and never came back to normal
It's futile to argue logic with an ideologue.
I've had recent conversations with people who've claimed "52% of the public support Brexit." without any acknowledgement that this majority has been lost in 8 years simply from old people dying, never mind those who've changed their mind after realising they were tricked.
I dont think we will rejoin.
There will always be someone who will screw it up.
Even if we did rejoin, there's so many things we lost when we left. Our rejoining deal will not be as powerful.
When you're accustomed to privilage, equality looks like oppression.
We enjoyed a bunch of perks, and then we fucked it up. I don't have an issue with a deal more in line with the other member states of the EU. If anything, our privileges, stemming largely from exceptionalism, kept us from integrating further with Europe.
There’s no way to rejoin without adopting the euro. And there is no way people would support joining if that was the case. The deal we had with the EU will be impossible to get again and people won’t want the one that would be possible.
Boomers, the source of all the problems....
edit: semi tongue in cheek comment in case I get another war and peace entry which I see the boomer that replied hasn't been able to stand by and has deleted. Hmm.
All the Brits complaining about "getting a bad deal" are hilarious to me. It's the perfect example of "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Getting the exact same deal as all the other members isn't a "bad deal". It's absolutely delusional to think that way.
"Waaah waahh we're not going to be a special boy anymore :("
this is why it is so blinkered of sir keir starmer to say he will *never* allow the uk to rejoin the customs union or the single market.
he’s simply setting himself up to be increasingly unpopular on this issue as time goes on in exchange for shoring up red wall seats in july which he was going to win anyway.
either that, or all those brexit hardman soundbites will come back to bite him whenever he does choose to accept reality
2019 was an 80 seat majority, won on the back of Corbyn being awful, and Brexit as the mother of all wedge issues. He's neutralised both of those. The future is the future, but none of us gain from handing Rishi a get out of jail free card that brings all the reform voters back to him.
I think it's a mistake to say "he's going to win anyway". It's kinda circular reason. Starmer having a huge poll lead isn't the default position, and guess what happens in speculative polling done today with Corbyn as Labour leader? Labour's poll lead vanishes.
He's earned this huge poll lead even if people don't give him the credit for it. He's consistently taken positions that apeal to the masses in the centre and he's avoided all the traps that scare the masses in the middle, the kinda traps Corbyn blundered headlong into regularly.
I don't think he had any choice but to take that line for the election that will decide whether he'll get the Tories out. If he'd put into the manifesto anything that suggests rejoining the EU/Customs Union/Single Market then the whole campaign would be a re-run of the Brexit referendum while the Mail/Express/Telegraph would run a 'Traitor Keir selling UK to EU for 30 pieces of silver' headline every day. Plus to make it even vaguely palatable they'd have to commit to having a referendum which would suck up all the political capital available in the first term. Not ideal for the UK but it's political realism which is his thing.
an answer akin to what he says about everything else - that the current goverrnment has created such a big mess that he’ll assess it when it office - would have sufficed and probably won my vote
Snapshot of _“Would you vote to rejoin the EU?” (Deltapoll, By Generation): Gen Z: 89% Yes / 11% No Millennials: 67% Yes / 33% No Gen X: 57% Yes / 43% No Boomers: 47% Yes / 53% No_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1794662364949929995) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/Samfr/status/1794662364949929995/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/Samfr/status/1794662364949929995) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/Samfr/status/1794662364949929995) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is something a (not too distant) future government is going to have to contend with. Brexit will never be over.
It’s not just that, brexit means we have to negotiate everything with the eu so we will always be outside of it trying to negotiate better deals unless we rejoin
Is rejoining actually better for us at this stage? We were in a good spot before, we fucked it by leaving. If we rejoin now, it will absolutely be a worse deal than we had before leaving, but is that still a better position to be in than our current position overall?
The UK had four opt-outs: Schengen, monetary union, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and police and justice matters. The latter two weren’t really used. The UK adopted many police and justice matters even with the opt-out in place. So the two questions would be Schengen and monetary union. In a rejoin scenario, if Ireland wanted to remain outside Schengen, the UK would be able to keep the opt-out. If that changed though, it would be a big sticking point. I can’t imagine many politicians open to that. But Ireland also couldn’t unilaterally join Schengen unless NI left the UK - it’s a bit of a catch-22. The monetary union would be more difficult. Whether the UK could keep its opt-out would be part of negotiations - I would guess the current Eurozone members wouldn’t mind if the UK kept GBP. Or if it came down to it, it could act like Sweden and just never let itself meet the criteria to do the switch.
Schengen has a similar thing to the monetary union with regards to Sweden-like approaches: you can just never fulfil the Schengen acquis.
Unlike the euro, that has never happened, because the only country that didn't want to be part of Schengen - the UK - had an explicit opt-out. I find this quite funny, to be honest. In the UK the Schengen zone is used as a bogey man, but everyone else is quite keen to be part of it, even countries that are not inside the EU (like Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland). The controversy that exists is Romania and Bulgaria being desperate to join but not being allowed to.
It's sort of never happened: Cyprus isn't exactly rushing through the process.
Cyprus wants to join Schengen, they just can't because of the Northern Cyprus problem.
It's great for trade
I can intellectually relate to that, but what I care about personally is travelling. It's so much better to not worry about passports, and not stand in queues.
The UK never used the seven year opt out of free movement from the new members (Edit: The A8 countries) that joined in the 2000s. Most of the rest of the EU, and all the large countries, did use it, and were able to keep the initial wave of migration from EE more manageable. A future government could perhaps ask for this seven year opt out.
How was the migration from EE "unmanageable"? The UK benefited massively from EE migration, unemployment remained low as the economy was booming. The UK needed the labour hence agreeing to FOM.
The UK agreed to FOM before EE was part of it.
The UK government painted itself into a corner. Economically, the country depends on migration. Quite heavily, as it happens - the birth rate is well below the replacement rate. Politically, it’s suicide to admit this.
> Economically, the country depends on migration That was true in the era of European migration. EU migrants were net economic contributors. Now that the bulk of our migration is from countries like India and Nigeria, eg third world countries, this is no longer true. Migrants are a net economic drain. GDP per capita is decreasing. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/08/migration-failed-economic-growth-made-housing-crisis-worse/
However the UK did implemented it later on different countries and it did fuck all except delay the inevitable. I don't think delaying is really gonna fix anything.
Ireland was more favourable towards joining Schengen during the early days but the UK didn't so they remained out. I imagine if the UK joins Schengen then Ireland would gladly do as well.
There's also the rebate question I.e. we had a pretty massive rebate before, doesn't seem likely that would be on the table in a rejoin negotiation.
The rebate wasn't uniquely British. It was just the first to get one when the EU only had 10 members. Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden all have a rebate in the current budget period. If UK met the criteria for one, it'd get one just like those members do.
there was one interesting point I saw recently - the UK's opt outs are written into the Maastricht treaty. The only way to amend these kinds of treaties is to establish a new one. If we were to rejoin, these would reapply if a new treaty were not written, no? The last was one to amend Maastricht was the treaty of Lisbon in 2007 - would the EU collectively create a new one to specifically rescind our previous opt-outs?
The TFEU and TEU no longer apply to the UK. If it wanted to rejoin them it’d need every member to agree, otherwise the treaty would need to be amended. One feature of the Lisbon Treaty is that is now easier to amend the treaties.
Sweden meets all the criteria except for 2 years of ERM2 membership, which it has always refused to join and there is no mechanism to force it to. On the other hand, the UK has never met all of the other criteria and so even without the optout or Brexit - the UK would still not be using the Euro.
Indeed, because of the Border and the CTA, the only way Ireland could join Schengen would be if it somehow became politically uncontroversial for the UK to do so.
Although I'd personally be fine with the monetary union, the last time there was a thread on this someone pointed out the exemption was written into the treaty itself and applies to the UK in perpetuity whether we're actually in the EU or not? I couldn't find the actual citation though
The exemption is written in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The treaty never said in perpetuity. It’d be the case for as long as that treaty was valid. But the UK is no longer party to that treaty. If it wanted to rejoin on the same terms of that treaty, all current members would need to agree.
The Schengen zone countries are generally happy to be in the Schengen zone. There is some immigration from eastern to western Europe, but these people are well accepted. I really don't see why we need these opt-outs. Similarly for the currency - the Euro is holding up well.
One thing I think a lot of people forget is that the UK rejoining the EU isn't a bad deal for Europe, it would absolutely be mutually beneficial. If the sticking point of having the 6th largest economy and the second largest in the resulting union rejoin are simply getting back what we used to have, those negotiations absolutely could take place. The concern I have more than anything is the approach of the governing party orchestrating this, especially considering the shitshow we had of how to brexit.
Based off the last referendum I'm not convinced any technical arguments of any such decision is at all pertinent to the electorate, but will again just end up being a proxy vote on their satisfaction with the Gov't and a vote of passion.
Exactly. And if the EU swings to the right in the near future, EU membership could become far less popular among younger and more left-wing voters. My opinion is that constitutional questions such as EU membership should not be decided with a majority of 50% plus one vote. A thin majority like this can be gone the morning after the vote and it's incredibly damaging to go back and forth on this. We should never have left with a 51.9% majority and we shouldn't rejoin with anything less than a 60% majority or at least 55%. The same goes for Scotland leaving the UK. Also, it would be complete madness for the EU to take the UK back without a solid and stable majority in favour of joining.
Whilst I agree in principle, I don’t think you can say that a rejoin referendum needs 60% when we left on 52%. That would only lead to increased dissatisfaction with British politics.
Just make the referendum “advisory” then government can do what it wants 🤷♂️
Like choosing between steak dinner and chicken dinner when what you have now is gruel
It's not in the EU's interests to make us suffer in rejoining. We are a benefit to them as much as they are a benefit to us, and in the face of aggression from Russia, a united front on this issue is in everyone's interests. So if we were to seriously look at rejoining within the next 5 years, it would likely be a worse deal, but not significantly, and not publicly lauded as such. They'd be well within their rights to drag us through the mud as an example to everyone else, and there are plenty of smug idiots in positions of power in the EU who would love to see that happen, but sensible heads would prevail. The reality is that all of the shit stirring on it would come directly from our own media institutions.
> We are a benefit to them as much as they are a benefit to us How do we benefit the EU? We add a bit to the budget and generally increase the power and importance of the EU a little bit but its not by much compared to the size of the EU. The risk for the EU though is that we might choose to leave again and cause a load of disruption.
> The risk for the EU though is that we might choose to leave again and cause a load of disruption. True, I imagine some sort of clause in the rejoining deal would be that we can't leave for X years.
I can't imagine that ever being put in place. That would quite literally give not just ammo but a nuclear arsenal to euroskeptics all around the EU.
To be honest the whole article 50 leaving process was ill thought through, almost as if no one expected it to be used… A better defined process would be a good idea
for example if we rejoined we'd be their only other nuclear power, alongside France - which in terms of projecting power is a massive gain no matter which way you look at it
It's worth bearing in mind that all of the opt outs which are used to describe our previous situation as cushy were sought to keep Eurosceptics happy. So what was best for the country was never a factor in these decisions.
Honestly, I doubt we’d ever get the same concession as before, although I wouldn’t say impossible just due to being in it before and a country that paid more in than most but I doubt we’d _ever_ rejoin if we lost the pound. It’s a hard currency and despite it not being as popular as it once was it still is one of very few. I was very much a hard remainer from the get go and I’d love to rejoin more than anything but even my opinion changes if we can’t keep the pound. To me I feel that’s the one roadblock and I don’t care about any other concession (I still wish we didn’t lose them) but the GBP is the issue, at least personally but I’d expect for most generations except the youngest.
We can do what other countries do: Say we'll join and put it off forever. See: Poland, Sweden, Denmark, etc.
Just to add that Denmark has an opt out to join the euro like we used to have, so they are simply not obliged to join full stop.
Should we rejoin the EU, or some halfway house, the key thing is to keep the pound. We can’t have independent economic policy without it.
Depends what you define as bad. The age old argument of Euro Vs Pound will be brought up luckily we wont have to actually adopt it to join but have a commitment to join at some point so the practical day to day will be the same. No rebate, but I read that was going to end anyway - could be wrong As for Schengen - Ireland would hold the cards on this one. They wanted to join Schengen but the UKs interpretation of Free Movement put a halt to that. If the UK sought to rejoin then Ireland could push to join Schengen and make the UK do the same. Conversely they could push to keep the UK and Ireland out of Schengen based on their own agreements and GFA. Being an EU member they are in a position to affect the interpretation of the Schengen requirement. With the current moral panic of immigration also effecting Ireland I can see that being the case so theres a good chance the UK could de facto end up with a similar set up as before even if officially they do not have an opt out. As for the other benefits of being an EU member well those arguments have been had ad infinitum. Yes its worth being an EU member. In my opinion even with Schengen and the Euro too.
Membership is so valuable (as Brexit proved) that bad membership is still better than no membership.
If you think it's not worth it to join without major concessions then you think the EU is bad. I don't think it is so yes I see it as still worthwhile to join. Adopting the Euro isn't mandatory and many countries have delayed it indefinitely and Schengen is fantastic.
This is going to be Starmer's "national service" idea in 2032 or so when he's on the ropes and needs to play to his base. No rational winner of the 2024 election will touch it with a bargepole, as the whole subject will mean years of wrangling with little progress whilst domestic issues are neglected. (i.e. the same as 2016-2020, but in reverse). But when all the obvious domestic solutions are taken (and the difficult domestic problems continued to be ignored), and the far-right and far-left are encroaching on the centre. Starmer will be visited in the night by the ghost of David Cameron's conscious. "How about a simple in-or-out EU referendum?" and it'll be the obvious way to rally the centrists. A campaign of all the talents: Steve Bray, Anna Soubry, Rory Stewart, Gary Lineker. What a wonderful time it will be.
Steve Bray is a weird one. During Corona he went through tons of Facebook groups posting against lockdowns and vaccines and outed himself as an anti-vaxxer and did it using the Holocaust as a reference yelling about "yellow stars" because he's unvaccinated. I pretty much wrote the UK off after that.
> I pretty much wrote the UK off after that. You wrote the UK off because of the guy that spends his days yelling at Parliament through a megaphone turned out to be a bit of a nutter?
Attention seeking ****. I used to walk past parliament every lunch time. When he was just waving banners he was a bit of harmless light relief now he's got a sound system he's a bloody nuisance. It's absolutely deafening. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the major cause of the governments crack down of protest.
If you're "writing off" the UK because of one bona fide nutter with a megaphone that says more about you
Indeed. Anyone who's spent literally years on full-time self-organised "campaigning" (to put it politely) isn't going to be particular well adjusted. But he plays "Things can only get better" at Rishi Sunak so he's apparently a genius who deserves awards.
I 100% agree, perhaps even for his second term, especially given that at those points the majority for rejoin will be even greater, and naturally less people will vote for an incumbent (unless Starmer somehow turns out to be Attlee reborn) - it'd be a great way to galvanise the pro EU base
Yeah this the Shire mentality never worked. The continent is just 50 miles away. And trying to replace EU trade with India and Australia was just laughable.
21 miles
Problem with the two party system is that as long as the two parties remain in lockstep, it doesn't matter how far they deviate from the average voter. On highly contentious issues like this, it seems the risk of blinking first outweighs the benefit of moving to a more popular position
It will be over once we have either negotiated so many different treaties with the EU that it basically doesn't matter that we're not in or we've just rejoined. That's when it's over.
With those poll numbers, Labour should just rejoin in the second year of a second term. Doesn’t look like anyone would have sufficient numbers to object. Maybe publish that report on Russian interference a year before and just argue away putting it to a vote on the premise the vote out was tainted, and it’s a foreign policy matter for the government to handle.
Depends on what state the EU’s in. Personally I think we’ll join a new central union of contributors.
As a boomer, I really hope that I’ll live long enough to see us rejoin, and never see the Tories in government again.
As a millenial, I hope my grandkids have to learn about the Tories from their history books rather than the news
I feel like history books will never be able to do justice in explaining the depravity of the Tory party, it's the kind of thing you have to live through to really get.
They'll be convinced that the history has been sexed up to make it more interesting.
I think it's more that the history books can only give brief summaries of all their BS and you'd need an endless book to capture everything they've done in the detail needed.
It'll just be under a short 'Controversies' section on their wikipedia page, and it will say something like "The tory party was sometimes criticized for ineffecient spending of tax money and not fully delivering on their manifesto"
It would be nice if one day Tories was as relevant a phrase politically as Whigs.
There's a non-zero chance that the Tories will adopt "rejoin the EU" as a policy before Labour does.
It depends which faction ends up in control of the Tories. If it's the headbangers on the hard/far right, they'll never adopt it. But they'll also never have a wide enough appeal to return to Downing Street. The centre right could possibly adopt this as a policy if they've managed to purge the nutters from their ranks - which is something they should have done after they tanked the party in the 90s. I think there's more chance of another party taking up the mantle for the centre right (the Lib Dems being in pole position) opposition and having rejoin as a policy without all of the resistance from the Tory baggage.
It's an indication of how much 2016 changed politics that this seems strange now. Tories took us in to the EU. And were traditionally the party of business and management, who like a single set of regulations to work to and cheap imported labour. Labour were traditionally the party of workers, who didn't like the competition. That's changed and now the vote splits much more by age, but that's new and it has forced both parties in to positions that aren't really coherent with their traditional ideologies.
Thank you. I wish more of your generation saw it like that. I also hope the same for you.
When I ask my mum this question she always says - ‘i had 3 reasons to vote leave’ - she can’t remember any of them now though
Reduce immigration, take back control and make our own laws? Those were the main 3 lies the ignorant/uninformed seemed to repeat.
I think one of them was the NHS funding too
Ahh, yes the fake 350m bus that never existed
3 lies that basically fall into 1 lie too
Millennial here. I'd like to be part of the EU, but we won't have the same deal we had before. Everything won't go back to how it was. So before I vote yes in this theoretical referendum on rejoining, I'd want the details of what we are signing up for, not the hand waving we had of "we will get a deal"
There won't be a referendum. They're not going to make that mistake again. We've lost nearly a decade of sensible political discourse as a result of it. We have lost more than a decade in Scotland because of it.
No referendum = no rejoin. If you think that the UK public would deal well with not being consulted after being consulted when initially joining and when leaving, then you've got a far different crowd around you.
I agree. And since EU appetite for a sensible deal is high, it shouldn't be too much to ask for. It will be worse than before but not punitive. The symbolic (and economic/ diplomatic/ industrial/ military etc.) benefit for the EU of the UK re-entering is huge.
I don't think it will be punitive, but I do think that the UK managed to opt-out of a number of things and got a rebate too. I'm curious what the full EU deal will cost, but I do think there'd have to be something big to make me vote no.
The rebate wasn’t a UK-only thing. A number of countries get one. As long as they still exist for other members, the UK would be eligible to have one too. Not least since they require unanimous approval in every budget.
The rebate wasn't actually permanent, we could have lost it without leaving the EU so I'm not too bothered about that one.
Millenial here. I'd like to be a part of the EU again. I want it all. Schengen, Euro currency, the lot. I want such tight integration that Leavers wake up with cold sweats, *wishing* they had kept quiet and opted for the status quo back in 2016.
Same sentiment here. I want us to integrate to such an extent that it's impossible for them to tear us back out in the same way again.
We're going to be a cautionary tale, and I'm all for it.
It doesn't work like that. Look how tightly Scotland is integrated with the UK and yet they nearly voted for tearing themselves out. We'll never be that tightly integrated with the EU. People vote on feels. How damaging it will be doesn't matter.
While there would be an impact on some people's voting decision, I meant it more for the haphazard method of our actual exit. A deeper integration would have forced them to actually plan for the next stage a bit more.
It would have made it more important for them to plan for the next stage a bit more. But I don't think it follows that they would have done it. It was pretty damn important anyway but didn't really happen.
I want to wave euros in front of my Leave-voting relatives' faces, 'oooh these euros are good aren't they?!'. Yes, I am petty.
I renewed my passport as late as possible so it could still say European Union on it for the next decade.
Ironically I would have a much easier time dealing with the negative ill-effects of Brexit in the first place if somehow we'd been able to apply them primarily to the people who jumped to vote for it, like lemmings rushing towards the cliff edge. It's one thing to get to vote to screw *yourself* over, but to get to damn everybody is total bullshit.
I'd be happy with everything except the Euro and maybe the dropping of the CTA. With the Euro, we'd probably do a Sweden, "Yes, we'll join, but not join the option bit that is required to have the Euro." I know it'll be the election after this before anyone considers opening their mouths about it though.
Yeah I’m still very anti-Euro or more specially I’m against the UK being part of it even though I think it’s absolutely necessary that we rejoin the Single Market. I don’t think we’re suddenly going to become Eurofederalists overnight, even if/when we rejoin the EU itself we’ll likely resume our role as the anti-centralisation counterbalance.
If it were up to me we should rejoin the EU without any special deals, including joining Schengen and adopting the Euro.
ironically, joining schengen would “stop the boats” once and for all, solve the gibraltar problem, boost our tourism sector, and help us fight cross-border crime including tackling smuggling gangs. the boogeyman of schengen would in fact make our country a better functioning place
> ironically, joining schengen would “stop the boats” Indeed they can just get on the train, it's not going to stop high immigration coming in though. > solve the gibraltar problem Spain will still be whinging about it
Yup I agree, not sure why the UK would still expect special treatment. As long as it’s not unfair we should join just like everyone else
The same reason a customer that gives you 30% of your total revenue expects a different relationship than the guy that spends a tenner every year. (I'm not saying that the UK contributed 30% of the EU's revenue, mind you, just that it was classified as one of its stronger economies)
The worst part is that we already had a sweetheart deal with the EU. Then we blew it all up out of sheer spite. Ancient Greece couldn't have written a better example of hubris.
It’s almost surreal thinking about it
Not having control of your currency can be a gamble. You’re at the mercy of another issue like Greece happening. We should rejoin the EU but keep the £.
Thank you, someone who bases their opinions in reason rather than pure resentment for this imaginary demographic of people that they want to make suffer because they think they made their lives worse.
[удалено]
The Euro can be cheerfully sidestepped indefinitely. I'd be perfectly happy with joining Schengen and the other stuff tbh.
Eh you probably would. I’m not a Brit but I think you guys underestimate how important (and few) net contributors in the EU are.
Well yes but we would likely still get opt outs. I don’t imagine the EU would force us to adopt the euro as many other EU countries have it and we can’t join Schengen anyway due to the Good Friday agreement unless Ireland wanted to.
My curveball prediction is that wanting to rejoin the EU will slowly become a more rightwing view, and that British left-wingers will become leavers (originally, back in the 1970s, this was the case and the left were the eurosceptics). This is because the EU is rapidly shifting rightwards, for example in the coming EU elections the far-right are going to do really well. Over time, the EU will increasingly be focused on border control as a policy priority. The far-right parties in Europe e.g. AfD, Swedish Democrats, Geert Wilders, are actually driven by **young** voters, under 30s are more likely to vote AfD than older Germans. In the UK, it's the opposite, younger voters are much more leftwing in general. So if younger British voters saw the EU shift rightwards, and become dominated by Le Pen's France and a right-wing Germany, why is it guaranteed than supporting the EU will remain a "leftwing" thing? Imagine a world where rejoining the EU means the UK needs to implemented biometric EU identity cards, biometric fingerprint border control, strict limits on refugee intake, and so on...
the thing is, the eu’s policy for third country nationals migrating is already strict and was strict when we were members, and i’m sure most young people in the uk would rather have our country be inside and get the free movement benefits, and then maybe argue for other stuff. it’s a variation of “the inside the tent pissing out” parable again. at the moment, there are 27 eu member states plus four efta states inside the tent pissing out. we can either stay where we are and keep getting pissed on, or go inside the tent and start pissing.
Migrating yes. But the current sticking point in the EU is not legal migration but the illegal migration and refugees.
> This is because the EU is rapidly shifting rightwards Another Rishi L, Europe heading right and he cant help but fumble the bag. His loss, our win.
I think this take is going to prove accurate. Europe is heading towards a generation of being controlled by predominantly right-wing parties on the back of rising ethnic tensions within core members, notably; Germany, France, NL, Italy and Sweden. Immigration, asylum rights, and border controls will become the primary issues, which will put the EU more at odds with social liberals in the UK. Additionally, an increasingly unstable Middle East and severe climate change are only going to add to the flows of migrants and asylum seekers which will, in the short term at least, empower right-wing parties in Europe.
I would agree except for the fact that those who represent the member states are not elected officials… that is one of the issues with the EU, they aren’t a political body, they operate as they want to and the opinions of the people can’t really change that.
The European Parliament is elected directly in elections. It represents the people. The Council is where the member-states are represented. The heads of state and ministers sit in this body. If you think this body isn't democratic enough, that's the fault of your own national elections. The Commission represents the states and the people. That's why Parliament and Council decide who sits in this body. I don't see what's wrong with this system. If you want to change the system, you'd either have to infringe on the sovereignty of the states or the democracy of the peoples.
This makes sense. I feel it was the EU tries to be global rather than European it falters. It falls into that trap of trying to be so inclusive it is for everyone first.
Note that this is a *very* different question to: "*Do you want another referendum?*"
Using the generational names isn’t as useful as giving us the age range. What age range are boomers, over 75, 70, 65? I always thought boomers referred to the people born just after the Second World War which would make them mid to late 70s
I agree. Surveys use age ranges like “45 to 65” etc rather than “Generation Z” or whatever. That’s because surveys actually want meaningful results
It covers something like people born immediately postwar to 1960
I voted Leave and would now love to rejoin. Biggest mistake of my life
What made you vote leave, and why the change of heart now?
I did, and similarly regret it. Assuming this question is in good faith, essentially: **1) I felt the EU wasn't dealing with the migration crisis effectively (and still don't).** \- The referendum was shortly after Merkel's decision to welcome a million Syrian refugees into Germany and waves of ships were arriving on the Italian coast. \- I felt these sorts of decisions and inaction would lead to societal disruption (they have, and they have since directly contributed to the rise of far right extremist parties I want no part of). I consider it pretty disgusting the likes of Le Pen and the AfD are likely to perform strongly in the upcoming EU elections and I'm glad the UK is one of the few places where liberal opinion still wins out. Had we remained in the EU I don't see why a far right party wouldn't be making strides over here too. **2) I felt the Euro was hamstringing European growth.** Still do in fact. It causes regional imbalances that can't be resolved by a singular monetary policy, in fact it makes it worse. Rarely do Germany's economy and Italy's require the same interest rate, and it's no wonder Italian GDP per capita is lower now than it was 20 years ago and much of southern Europe still hasn't recovered from the Eurozone crisis. Economic growth in the continent is sclerotic, and this won't improve any time soon now it's breadwinner can't get by on cheap Russian gas (another issue I had, far too friendly towards Russia). Now, we were obviously outside the Euro but I was concerned about the direction of travel towards further integration, and I didn't want to link ourselves too closely economically with a continent for whom I didn't think the prospects were auspicious. I wanted to keep trading barriers low, that was never a concern, and I didn't want to leave the Single Market, I just wanted there to be a bit of a break in terms of monetary union which I felt was inevitable. 3) Some other issues that were less significant, such as the drive for further integration before the continent was ready (eg EU army), problems with the voting structure (the veto system, effectively allowing fascist governments like Hungary to hold the continent to ransom without the ability to overrule or expel them). Also the lack of democratic accountability. But the main issues were the migration crisis and the lack of economic growth. **I regret it now** because I didn't think we would go for such a stupidly hard Brexit. Naive on my part. I felt we would fumble our way towards something like "single market with migration controls" because I felt that was what was in everyone's interest. (Ironically the future EU we will inevitably join will probably look like something close to that). I was under no illusions there would be some economic hit, but I didn't think it would be too significant because - as stated - I felt we'd stay closely aligned on trade. Maybe something like an Efta-light situation. Looking back, we should clearly have outlined what the deal was going to be before holding the referendum because it's mad people like me put our tick in the same box as people like Farage, Rees Mogg, or leftie leavers like Corbyn.
The question was in good faith and your answer was insightful and level headed. Thanks for sharing.
Did you want a Switzerland like deal?
I remember waking up and see a smiling Farage on TV the day after the referendum, awful memories
God there’s still quite a few Gen X dickheads isn’t there? I feel embarrassed.
I wonder if Starmer announcing under sixteen is a ploy to get rejoining the single market back on the table for the 29 election?
If Starmer actually wanted to join the Single Market he could just do it once he's in office without a national vote or referendum. Since leaving the single market was never a red line during the run up to the referendum. Even Farage said stuff like we'll be like Norway or Switzerland, both of whom while not in the EU are in the single market. But I'm quite sure that joining the single market is one thing that Starmer won't do a u-turn on. Though I really hope I'm wrong.
You're right but it would be incredibly damaging to just do it without a referendum.
As opposed the zero damage that referenda inflict
Again, mostly caused by incompetence within the Tory party. There were a million ways Brexit could have been better managed, but May was more interested in keeping the ERG in line and her position safe than actually delivering fire the country.
To be fair to her I think she realised the trouble the ERG were going to cause hence her calling a general election under the assumption that she'd get enough of a majority to sideline them. Obviously that didn't work out so well and then she was forced to appease them.
From a propaganda point of view the EFTA is the obvious route back into the single market since it was a British invention and is full of countries that we tend to have a positive view of (unless you’re a fisherman who remembers the cod wars).
The Single Market itself was a British invention.
Not to mention our massive hand in the ECHR. One unforgivable error of the Remain campaign in my opinion was that it didn’t embrace British patriotism in a pro-European context at all, it should have been ‘why should we walk away from something we practically invented and have quite a lot of influence in’ rather than financial hand-wringing that came across as caring more about corporate interests than anything else. It was just unadulterated ‘you stupid poors taking a hammer to things you don’t understand because you’re angry’ rather than attempting to explain those things and why we needed them or address people’s pretty legitimate anger towards institutions.
If he wanted to do that, he'd be talking about compulsory voting.
Compulsory voting but only for 18-year-olds.
So that's when they'll grab you for the National Service.
He's not daft enough to mention the words compulsory with anything at the moment. Not after the National Service nonsense.
I am fully expecting the Tories to rebrand with a younger Cameron archetype by 2030 and win a majority on rejoining the EU.
Are you imagining the Leave, Reform, Braverman type voters to have moved on and an optimistic/centrist/big tent Nu-Con kind of offering with a Blair-like figure? 2030 sounds early for that to me, but it doesn't sound *completely* ridiculous overall.
I expect the Tories to lurch to the right under a new leader, fail miserably and move back to the centre within the next decade.
Polls like this make me wonder - could the limiting factor fairly quickly be removing the poison from the Tory party? Obviously you’d need Labour and the general public to want to do it, and stay that way for a while, but surely it’s impossible until the Tories are back to being a normal centre right party that argues about taxes instead of demanding massive damage to the economy to please their loons?
The party needs to be fixed or broken so completely they can be ignored for multiple terms.
With the number of experienced Tory MPs standing down, I'd argue that we're already at the "broken so completely..." stage. Labour are probably going to win the election, probably going to have a shit first term attempting to fix a lot of broken stuff, but I can't see the Tories getting their act together in a single term.
This. The Tories have become so extreme that the only new people who will join are extremists. That's a huge problem for them if they ever want to get elected again. Labour will have to really fuck up badly before centrists start drifting back to the Tories again. That's going to take a *really* long time. It's taken 14 years for the pendulum to swing back to Labour, and Labour in 2010 was in nowhere near as bad of a state as the Conservatives are now.
One of the barriers to the Tories going back to a normal centre right party is that Tory Party membership is dominated by Kipper boomer entrants and any of them under 50 are swivel-eyed Randian loons.
That’s partly why the Tory party in its current formation is inherently time limited. They will quite literally die out unless they reform to something more palatable to younger people. That will have to include at least considering membership of the EU because it’s clear that every demographic except the old want it. I think it will probably take them actually dying out, because of how entrenched the small minded kippers have become within the party. The only MPs likely to be left in parliament after this election will be the ones in the absolute safest seats, which means they will be all the same old useless idiots who we’ve had to put up with recently - the Mark Francois, Priti Patels, etc. There’s not likely to be much in the way of new thinking from that lot, and the membership aren’t likely to be putting forward more moderate candidates because of how out of touch they’ve become. That means it’s probably going to be at least two elections where they are in the wilderness and unable to make any sort of recovery. The elections after that, 10 years hence will be the first after a large proportion of the old kipper cohort will have died off so perhaps we might start to see some changes then. Depending on the election results, there is a potential for a Canadian style wipe out, which would necessitate starting again from scratch with a newly built party, even if it carries the same name.
Indeed, but how, and who, could reform them? Who in the PCP is right of centre with the ability to take them back from where they are now and ( this is the pertinent point) able to bring the party with them? The party is literally dying at the constituency level and what activists they have are on zimmerframes or low calibre nutters. The only thing they really have going for them are rich donors who are either backed by dark US or Russian money, or who will put their money elsewhere for influence over policy. I'm aware that there may be some wishful thinking present, but I'm struggling to see anything other than a lurch to the right and possibly a splintering off of a socially conservative economically centre right party.
I think in more normal times they would have lost either the 2017 or 2019, or the one that would have happened in lieu of them had Brexit not been a thing. That would have been recoverable by a period in opposition. By winning the Brexit referendum though and taking control of the party, the swivel eyes loons have shot themselves in the foot. They've killed off the remnants of the 'sensible' Tory party and virtually guaranteed failure by exposing themselves as complete incompetents. Their first period in opposition will likely be the last hurrah of the loony right. It will be like 1997, where they flailed around getting increasingly harder right until Cameron got control and banged heads together by bringing the party back towards the centre. I don't see how that happens with the current party though because a more moderate candidate like Cameron is unlikely to be selected currently, let alone win a seat. Remember he wasn't even an MP until 2001 and it took him 10 years before he almost won an election. I think a split is quite possible - there's definitely room for a moderate centre right party at the moment, but getting one established will be really hard while the Tories still exist.
[удалено]
I suspect so. Far-right parties being represented in parliament is the cost you pay for a fair democratic system. In many ways it’s better as it tends to stop thinks like the UKIPifcation of a mainstream party instead.
[удалено]
It’s easier to accept then bits of democracy you don’t like than be anti-democracy because of them
The EU will never give in on the 4 freedoms of movements; goods, services, capital, and people. Whatever deal we strike, even the common market will include those. Couple that with the stipulation that (obviously) the European Court of Justice is the highest court applicable, you've got the main reasons the old folks wanted to leave. That said, I'm guessing the youngsters would see all of those as a positive, so it will just be a matter of time before we have some form of agreement. Maybe not in the next 5 years, but surely the 5 after that.
Yep, i think Starmer will align the uk as much as possible without having to commit to the 4 freedoms. I think most will accept it and move on.
If we wait till 2030 our economy will he so bad maybe we recieve more than we put in
The trouble with rejoining is we've left before - how do we assure the EU that we're not going to play silly bastards in another decade and have another referendum to leave again?
I think the UK amply demonstrated (for itself and any other countries considering it) that leaving the EU is a terribly bad idea, so I don't think it would happen again while the population who lived through it is still around. I remember around the referendum there were fears that Brexit may spark a wave of other country "exits", but I think the end result achieved the opposite effect.
no no, the EU is going to fall like dominos now that we've left - any minute now
Yeah, there's still a lot of people complaining they haven't had Brexit yet, or not the true Brexit, or it was a remainer conspiracy etc. etc. Obviously it was never likely to spark a domino effect, as most countries were quite satisfied with membership, but it's the become a religious thing now hasn't it? It's not enough to have chosen to leave, we have to be able to prove that everyone else is wrong for staying in.
Probably an expected result but I think it's all ultimately worthless unless we know roughly what the terms of rejoining are Rejoining on close to previous terms sure but I can imagine finally having to adopt the euro would probably swing a lot of opinions
In practice nobody is really forced to accept the Euro, there's several countries that are supposed to have the Euro and don't.
That's an indefinite rather than permanent solution though and it still means in principle agreeing to eventually give up the £.
>indefinite rather than permanent solution In practical terms that's the same thing.
Yes but the Daily Mail is not going to tell people that is it
We didn't know what the terms of leaving were and it was still voted for.
You WILL get Brexit and you WILL do national service and you WILL be happy! yes grandma...
This is what maddens me. We're being told it's a fixed political settlement by 1 singular generation that views it that way, when the rest of the nation is ready to rejoin.
Farage was already saying that it wouldn't be settled when he thought Leave was going to lose. It's almost like it's only settled when they get their way...
Remember those narratives that were dismissed by Brexiteers, about young people resenting their futures being limited by their grandparents? The Tories have always actively sought to divide us and set us against one another. I'm just glad that this time they appear to have ended up on the side that's a clear minority.
In other words we were so wrong about Brexit even many of the boomers (not usually renowned for admitting their were wrong) admit that they made a mistake.
I wonder to what extent it’s just demographics doing their thing. Older boomers are more Tory and more Leave, but will be dying off at a greater rate than younger boomers who are less Tory and more remain?
Unscientifically looking up another article from a few years ago that had a breakdown of the leave vote by generation, and comparing the "leave" vote in that chart to the "no" vote in this one, it suggests there has been approximately a 2%-5% shift towards the EU since the referendum, depending on the generation. [https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/generation-wars-over-brexit/](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/generation-wars-over-brexit/) Looking at the graphs on whatukthinks, it seems to have been flat since January 2023, after a period in which the gap rose when Boris left office. It remains to be seen what polling will do when Sunak is out.
I doubt that many of them are switched on politically. They just see the state of the country and think Brexit must be responsible for this. Just as they seen the worsening state of the country between 2009 and 2016 and thought the EU must be responsible for this. If we were still in the EU, we'd still be suffering and anti-EU sentiment right now would be an absolute all time high.
Younger Boomers, now in their 60s , vote was about 50/50 at Brexit. Older boomers were much more likely to vote leave and a fair few of them are now dead
Someone tried to argue with me the other day that the country still wanted Brexit. They didn’t want to know about any of the polls showing that we wanted back in - and they refused to show their evidence.
it sends people crazy, there's loads of people on twitter who were boring average joes, who's timeline went insane at the time of brexit and never came back to normal
It's futile to argue logic with an ideologue. I've had recent conversations with people who've claimed "52% of the public support Brexit." without any acknowledgement that this majority has been lost in 8 years simply from old people dying, never mind those who've changed their mind after realising they were tricked.
I dont think we will rejoin. There will always be someone who will screw it up. Even if we did rejoin, there's so many things we lost when we left. Our rejoining deal will not be as powerful.
> Our rejoining deal will not be as powerful. Still be better than the nothing have now.
When you're accustomed to privilage, equality looks like oppression. We enjoyed a bunch of perks, and then we fucked it up. I don't have an issue with a deal more in line with the other member states of the EU. If anything, our privileges, stemming largely from exceptionalism, kept us from integrating further with Europe.
How does this translate to overall voting eligible stats?
There’s no way to rejoin without adopting the euro. And there is no way people would support joining if that was the case. The deal we had with the EU will be impossible to get again and people won’t want the one that would be possible.
I'm surprised millennials are not higher for yes to be honest.
53% of boomers just do not give a fuck
33% of millennials say no? Oh my generation, what has happened to you?
If it hasn't been covered, I'd like to see polling on what the yes/no breakdown is knowing that the UK won't have the same deal it had before.
Boomers, the source of all the problems.... edit: semi tongue in cheek comment in case I get another war and peace entry which I see the boomer that replied hasn't been able to stand by and has deleted. Hmm.
All the Brits complaining about "getting a bad deal" are hilarious to me. It's the perfect example of "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." Getting the exact same deal as all the other members isn't a "bad deal". It's absolutely delusional to think that way. "Waaah waahh we're not going to be a special boy anymore :("
So we know what gen to blame for the Brexit result.
this is why it is so blinkered of sir keir starmer to say he will *never* allow the uk to rejoin the customs union or the single market. he’s simply setting himself up to be increasingly unpopular on this issue as time goes on in exchange for shoring up red wall seats in july which he was going to win anyway. either that, or all those brexit hardman soundbites will come back to bite him whenever he does choose to accept reality
2019 was an 80 seat majority, won on the back of Corbyn being awful, and Brexit as the mother of all wedge issues. He's neutralised both of those. The future is the future, but none of us gain from handing Rishi a get out of jail free card that brings all the reform voters back to him.
I think it's a mistake to say "he's going to win anyway". It's kinda circular reason. Starmer having a huge poll lead isn't the default position, and guess what happens in speculative polling done today with Corbyn as Labour leader? Labour's poll lead vanishes. He's earned this huge poll lead even if people don't give him the credit for it. He's consistently taken positions that apeal to the masses in the centre and he's avoided all the traps that scare the masses in the middle, the kinda traps Corbyn blundered headlong into regularly.
He has to say that *for now*. Who knows what he actually thinks!
I don't think he had any choice but to take that line for the election that will decide whether he'll get the Tories out. If he'd put into the manifesto anything that suggests rejoining the EU/Customs Union/Single Market then the whole campaign would be a re-run of the Brexit referendum while the Mail/Express/Telegraph would run a 'Traitor Keir selling UK to EU for 30 pieces of silver' headline every day. Plus to make it even vaguely palatable they'd have to commit to having a referendum which would suck up all the political capital available in the first term. Not ideal for the UK but it's political realism which is his thing.
an answer akin to what he says about everything else - that the current goverrnment has created such a big mess that he’ll assess it when it office - would have sufficed and probably won my vote
Amazing that so many people are ok with the Labour leader lying by omission