London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2025

Britain is heading for a hard Brexit. Voters now prefer none at all

Britain is heading for a hard Brexit. Voters now prefer none at all

With trade talks in their final days, Britons’ attitudes to the EU have changed significantly since 2016
THE SIGNALS from the fraught trade negotiations between the EU and Britain seem to change by the hour. Big disagreements remain over fisheries, level-playing-field rules for competition and the governance of any deal. But both sides insist they still want a deal. The two chief negotiators, Michel Barnier for the EU and David Frost for Britain, shuttle frantically between Brussels and London.

Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, have spoken twice by telephone. Yet, even as December 31st approaches, when Britain’s transition period ends, a deal remains elusive. After the second call, on December 7th, Mr Johnson and Mrs von der Leyen said that “the conditions for finalising an agreement are not there” and that they would meet in Brussels “in the coming days”.

Easily lost in the rush of these last-minute negotiations is the state of public opinion in Britain. In the referendum in June 2016, voters backed the option to leave the EU by 52% to 48%. And in the general election of December 2019 they gave Mr Johnson, a hardline Brexiteer who campaigned to “Get Brexit Done”, a massive majority. That might point towards rising support for the decision to quit the club. Yet Sir John Curtice, the doyen of British pollsters, who has recently updated his opinion surveys for NatCen, a research institute, concludes otherwise.

His analysis suggests that, if a referendum were held today, a clear majority would vote to remain in the EU. Indeed, the share of remainers in the electorate is near its all-time high (see chart). The latest polls put the Remain camp nine points ahead of Leave (by 47% to 38%). As Sir John points out, this is not because many of those who voted to leave have changed their mind, but rather because former “don’t knows” now break almost two-to-one for remaining. The shift also reflects changing demographics: the majority for leaving came overwhelmingly from older voters, so the balance is shifting as younger voters take their place.

In separate polling analysis, Sir John finds that leaving the EU with no trade deal is even more of a minority preference. From his survey of the evidence, he reckons that no more than a fifth of voters favour the idea. He also concludes that support for Scottish independence has risen significantly because of Brexit, which Scotland voted against by a large margin in 2016. Some 51% of Scottish voters now support independence, a rise of five percentage points since the Brexit referendum.

In short, even as Mr Johnson faces a difficult choice between a hard Brexit with a trade deal or an even harder Brexit without one, popular support for the very idea of leaving the EU has declined. And the threat that a hard Brexit poses to the United Kingdom has also increased. Should the consequences of Brexit prove messy after December 31st, Mr Johnson’s already falling popularity with British voters may go down further.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×