Five years after Brexit, the proportion of Brits who think it was right to leave the EU is at its lowest-ever point since the referendum.
Just three in 10 Britons (30 per cent) say that it was right for the UK to vote to leave the EU, compared to 55 per cent who say it was wrong, a new YouGov poll has shown.
This is the lowest proportion of the public saying that Britain was right to vote to leave since the pollster began asking this question in the aftermath of the referendum.
In January 2020, when Britain officially left the bloc after voting to leave four years earlier, 40 per cent of people said it was the right decision, while 47 per cent said it was wrong.
Now, more than six in 10 Britons (62 per cent) say that Brexit has so far been more of a failure, against just 11 per cent who feel that it has been more of a success, though a more noncommittal 20 per cent of Britons consider it to be neither a success nor failure.
Notably, even Leave voters are more likely to consider Brexit to have gone badly than well, with 32 per cent labelling it more of a failure so far, compared to 22 per cent describing it as more of a success.
However, just one in six (18 per cent) Leave voters say that it was the wrong decision, with 66 per cent still saying it was the right choice.
By contrast, 88 per cent of Remainers think a vote for Brexit was wrong, with just 7 per cent saying it was the right choice.
Meanwhile, among 18-24-year-olds – who were unable to vote in the referendum - there is little belief that it went the right way – with three-quarters saying it was the wrong choice. Just one in 10 (10 per cent) say the UK made the right choice.
The latest polling comes after a damning report to mark the fifth anniversary of Britain’s departure from the EU, UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) said it appears that EU policy appears “peripheral to Starmer’s government”.
“The Brexit Files”, published on Tuesday by UKICE, lays bare the impact of Brexit on areas of the economy such as trade, immigration and defence, as well as the state of Sir Keir Starmer’s attempts to rebuild ties with Brussels.
The report branded the prime minister’s post-Brexit reset of relations with Brussels as anaemic, warning that his EU policy is vague and unambitious.
And, despite the PM and Rachel Reeves relentlessly focusing on economic growth, the EU relations think tank said it was remarkable that the chancellor’s October Budget failed to mention the impacts of Brexit once.
The YouGov survey, conducted on 21-22 January, spoke to 2,225 adults.
