politics
Poll Finds Two-Thirds of EU Citizens Open to Closer UK Ties but Fewer Back Full Rejoining
Polling by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows majority support across 15 EU countries for UK membership and closer ties, with British voters also favouring deeper relations including freedom of movement.
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Two-thirds of respondents across 15 EU countries said UK membership of the EU was a very good, good, or neither good nor bad idea, according to polling conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations ten years after the Brexit referendum. The Guardian reported that 59% of those surveyed favoured a closer relationship between the UK and the EU, while 46% supported the current status quo.
Support for the UK rejoining the EU reached 75% in the Netherlands and Denmark, 59% in France and Italy, and 56% in Bulgaria.
Even among voters for far-right and EU-critical parties, majorities backed closer UK-EU ties, including 71% of Poland’s Confederation supporters, 58% of Germany’s AfD voters, and 58% of France’s National Rally backers. European leaders have echoed these sentiments. ” Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain would “absolutely” support British membership.
Finland’s president Alexander Stubb said: “We need a UK voice in Europe. ” In May, the European Green party formally invited the UK to rejoin the EU. In the UK, polling carried out in May found 66% of respondents said Brexit had a negative impact on the cost of living, 65% on the economy, 57% on youth opportunity, 56% on illegal immigration, and 56% on trade.
Among 2016 leave voters, 58% said Brexit had made illegal immigration worse. Seventy-five percent of UK respondents favoured a closer relationship with the EU, and 66% said trade and economic ties should be very or slightly closer. Sixty-three percent said they would accept freedom of movement in exchange for closer trading ties, including 57% of 2016 leave voters.
Only 18% rejected freedom of movement even in exchange for closer ties. Among respondents whose top concern was immigration, 44% said they would back freedom of movement as part of a closer economic relationship. The report identified three voter groups in the UK: 28% classified as “optimists” who view European alignment as a geopolitical necessity, 35% as “realists” who support closer ties but still value US ties, and 27% as “loners” who prioritise national sovereignty.
