A clear majority of the British public now believes Brexit has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration, according to a landmark poll by Opinium to mark the third anniversary of the UK fully leaving the EU single market and customs unions.

The survey of more than 2,000 UK voters also finds strikingly low numbers of people who believe that Brexit has been of benefit to them or the country.

  • li10 ( li10@lemmy.ml ) 
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    3 years ago

    It’s become undeniable.

    My mother was all in on Brexit, she started out fiercely declaring it’s what the country needed.

    Then she said it’s going to benefit the country soon, then said it needs some time.

    Then she said that everything going wrong was unrelated to Brexit. Then said its not that bad, and the eventual positives will balance out.

    That’s the opinion shifting over the years. She now admits it was a mistake, “but how could we have known?!?”…

    • vzq ( vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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      3 years ago

      Tbf, there were multiple scenarios, and most people thought they were going to end up with an EEA arrangement at least.

      Of course, anyone who knew anything about the statutes knew it wasn’t going to happen, but there was a lot of wishful thinking going around.

      • li10 ( li10@lemmy.ml ) 
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        3 years ago

        Saying that most Brexit voters thought anything about an EEA arrangement is giving them too much credit imo.

        Their thought process was as shallow as “we should be independent, get the foreigners out, save EU membership fees, then everything will be good”, with no thought about the reality of the situation and how it will be achieved.

        A lot of them wanted hard Brexit just because negotiating a deal was taking too long, because in their minds it’s as simple as just leaving.

  • IbnLemmy ( IbnLemmy@feddit.uk ) 
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    3 years ago

    Britons voted for it, now they think it’s completely failed. I don’t know guys, but there some questions that we should just not ask Britons!!?

    Personally voted against Brexit, but always believed it should never have even gone to a referendum. We are a parliamentary democracy and parliament should have decided.

      • trebuchet ( trebuchet@lemmy.ml ) 
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        3 years ago

        Yup, you’re a real hero with your populism. Look how great that turned out.

        People these days treat democracy like a damned religion instead of a system of governance. Turns out though that complex decisions often benefit from expertise instead of letting the lowest common denominator decide.

    • HobbitFoot  ( HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ) 
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      3 years ago

      The problem is that it was an advisory vote and it is should have been handled by initially deciding a negotiating position.

      Leaving the EU meant a lot of different things and the approximate idea of implementation should have been decided on before leaving.

      • tal ( tal@lemmy.today ) 
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        3 years ago

        The problem is that it was an advisory vote

        This is sometimes raised, but is misleading. The only reason it was legally advisory is because in the British system of government, the UK cannot bind Parliament; the House of Commons can override anything else.

        In the system of government in some countries, the option for a meaningful legal difference between two types of referendum exists.

        The British government had been explicit that what the British public voted for would be implemented; this is the closest analog to a binding referendum. Had they simply wanted to request the advice of the public, it would have been announced that they would take the outcome under consideration.

        This is not to say that having that referendum was s good idea. It is just to say that the binding/advisory nature is really a property of the British system of government, not to indicate that the intent was to merely take the public’s vote as advice.

    • Damage ( Damage@feddit.it ) 
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      3 years ago

      We are a parliamentary democracy and parliament should have decided.

      It was decided by the political class, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. With such a slim margin they could have said “oh well, it’s practically 50-50, it’s wiser to maintain the status quo”.

    • Ilflish ( Ilflish@lemm.ee ) 
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      3 years ago

      Reminder of the vocal minority. The number of instances people can say this exact statement to ranges across the world UK with Brexit America with Presidential Election, Russia with the War, China and Japan’s financial situations. It’s not that people caught on, it’s that whoever holds the cards are catching on

  • I wonder. In Australia, Germany, and the bulk of the world prices are crazy, due to greed in the covid times.

    Are Brits mistaking this phenomena with Brexit?

    In Australia we, for the first ever time, have a highly visible homeless problem for example. Houses are not affordable for future generations. Basics are getting out of reach financially.

    If we’d had an “exit” of sorts, would we even know if it was the exit, or the covid greed?

    I suspect we’d blame it on the exit.

    • vzq ( vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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      3 years ago

      I wonder. In Australia, Germany, and the bulk of the world prices are crazy, due to greed in the covid times.

      The inflation is mostly energy squeeze because of the Ukraine war and the supply issues for Russian oil and gas.

      Don’t take my word for it, look at the graphs.

      It’s not COVID.

        • However the bulk of Australian natural gas is contracted to be shipped overseas (mostly to china), so despite the abundance of the resource it’s mostly not available for local usage. Besides even if it was world market prices will prevail. If you think Clive, Woodside or Gina are going to cut a discount to the aussie public when they can make more shipping it overseas then I have a bridge for sale

          • makingStuffForFun ( makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml ) 
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            3 years ago

            Ahhh I was hoping am Aussie would chime in. Totally agree.

            WA is the only state to enforce a minimum domestic percentage. QLD for example, has screwed us (qlder here). The Russian gas drama actually impacted us a little, which is madness considering the volume we produce.

            Love our corrupted “representatives” working hard for us.

  • bh11235 ( bh11235@infosec.pub ) 
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    3 years ago

    In poll land Brexit never happened, which set the stage for an uneventful 4-year Clinton presidency mostly famous for an iconic photo-op pres Clinton took with the zoo animal, Harambe, following a G20 summit where Xi boasted of negotiating Putin off a suicidal scheme to invade Kyiv, and also of successfully preventing a near-miss that would have led Wuhan to become the epicenter of a global health disaster. With me stranded here on the other side at the Berenstain universe, excuse me if I don’t get ahead of myself celebrating this poll.

  • mannycalavera ( mannycalavera@feddit.uk ) 
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    3 years ago

    Excellent. Labour, the next government of the UK, will see this polling in the guardian and campaign on an easy win to rejoin the EU?

    Will they fuck. Both Labour and Tories want Brexit votes in the North and poor areas of the country. Hence neither will do anything but more Brexit. The sad thing is that people will still vote Labour in massive numbers and keep us in Brexit mode. Get used to it lads… a decade or two more of this.

  • supersquirrel ( supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ) 
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    3 years ago

    It exhausts me how dumb the country I live in is (the US) and I appreciate that there is another country out there that can at least make me feel a little bit better about how dumb my country is.

  • rah ( rah@feddit.uk ) Banned
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    3 years ago

    has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration

    I don’t see how any of that implies failure. The goal of Brexit was for the UK to not be part of the EU. The UK is not part of the EU. Seems like success to me.

  • AutoTL;DR ( autotldr@lemmings.world ) B
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    3 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A clear majority of the British public now believes Brexit has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration, according to a landmark poll by Opinium to mark the third anniversary of the UK fully leaving the EU single market and customs unions.

    The survey of more than 2,000 UK voters also finds strikingly low numbers of people who believe that Brexit has been of benefit to them or the country.

    Just one in 10 people (10%) believe leaving the EU has helped their personal financial situation, against 35% who say it has been bad for their finances, while just 9% say it has been good for the NHS against 47% who say it has had a negative effect.

    James Crouch, head of policy and public affairs at Opinium, said the perception of Brexit being handled badly and having had negative effects on various aspect of UK life appeared to be spreading: “Public discontent at how Brexit has been handled by the government continues, with perceived failings even in areas previously seen as a potential benefit from leaving the EU.

    “Half (51%) of Leave voters now think that Brexit has been bad for the UK’s ability to control immigration, piling even more pressure on an issue the government is vulnerable on.

    “This shift in sentiment may be particularly stark among the ‘red wall’ voters who rallied most eagerly to Johnson’s banner four years ago, but have been most exposed to rising bills and collapsing public services since.


    The original article contains 691 words, the summary contains 259 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Letstakealook ( Letstakealook@lemm.ee ) 
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    3 years ago

    I don’t understand how the population of an island nation with no resources to speak of thought removing themselves from a larger economic bloc would benefit them in any way, other than to satisfy their racist tendencies. The entire history of the country is about its citizens leaving to steal resources from others because there isn’t shit on that island. I suppose I couldn’t expect the citizens who still worship a monarchy to have better critical thinking skills.