Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Ben Summer

Biggest-ever majority say voting to leave the EU was a mistake

More people than ever think it was the wrong decision to vote to leave the European Union. According to a new poll by YouGov, a record majority of people said the UK was wrong to vote to leave.

The data shows 56% of respondents thought it was the wrong idea to vote to leave, with only 32% saying it was the right idea. A further 12% said they didn't know.

YouGov has been tracking this data since just after the referendum in 2016. In this time, the "wrong" votes have often outnumbered the "right" votes, but never by this much - in fact, the number has rarely risen above 50% before.

One in five people who originally voted for Brexit now think it was the wrong decision, with the number thinking it was right having shrunk since 2016. Now, 70% of 2016 Leave voters think Brexit was the right move, 19% think it was wrong, and 11% don't know.

READ MORE: Everything kicks off in the Welsh Parliament as a member storms out saying it is an 'affront to democracy'

The numbers for Wales aren't available on their own, as they're grouped in with the Midlands. But Only 50% of people in this combined area thought Brexit was the wrong decision, with 37% saying it was right.

Remain voters haven't budged on their position. Nine in ten of them still say Britain was wrong to vote to leave, with only 5% thinking it was the right decision (and 4% saying they don't know).

In the same polling period (November 9 to November 10), 68% of people said the government was doing badly at handling Brexit, with just 21% saying it was doing well. Only 2% of respondents, and 9% of Conservative voters, said the government was handling it "very well."

Of people who said they would vote Conservative, 67% said the UK was right to leave the EU, and 25% said it was the wrong decision. Of people who would vote Labour, 83% said it was the wrong decision and just 11% said it was right.

Younger people were more likely to say it was the wrong decision - 67% of 18-24 year olds felt this way, compared to only 35% of over-64s.

More people believed Brexit was the right decision than not prior to the 2017 election. In the years following that election, Theresa May struggled to negotiate a Brexit agreement and Boris Johnson's Conservative Party won a huge majority in the 2019 campaign dominated by his "Get Brexit Done" slogan.

READ NEXT:

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.