{"id":650169,"date":"2026-06-21T07:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T07:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/650169\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T07:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T07:02:08","slug":"two-thirds-of-eu-citizens-back-uk-rejoining-bloc-survey-finds-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/650169\/","title":{"rendered":"Two-thirds of EU citizens back UK rejoining bloc, survey finds | Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two-thirds of EU citizens would back Britain rejoining the bloc, while most UK voters say Brexit<\/a> has been bad for the issues they care about and want closer ties, including levels of integration \u2013 such as free movement \u2013 long seen as toxic, a survey has found.<\/p>\n

Ten years after the Brexit referendum, the polling by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)<\/a>, a thinktank, found 66% of respondents across 15 countries felt UK membership was a very good, good or \u201cneither a good nor a bad\u201d idea.<\/p>\n

The average comfortably exceeded those favouring a closer relationship (59%) or the status quo (46%). Support for rejoin ranged from lows of 56% in Bulgaria<\/a> and 59% in France and Italy to highs of 75% in the Netherlands and Denmark.<\/p>\n

Even voters for far-right and EU-critical parties said they would support closer relations between the bloc and the UK, including a majority of backers of Poland\u2019s Confederation (71%), Germany\u2019s AfD (58%) and France\u2019s National Rally (58%).<\/p>\n

Many European leaders have reflected this view. France\u2019s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said the door is \u201calways open\u201d and Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, has said Spain would \u201cabsolutely\u201d support British membership.<\/p>\n

Alexander Stubb, Finland\u2019s president, has explicitly named the UK as a candidate for membership, saying: \u201cWe need a UK voice in Europe. We really miss you guys.\u201d In May, the European Green party formally invited the UK to rejoin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the UK, the polling, carried out in May, found voters across party lines, including supporters of Reform UK, believed Brexit had had a negative impact on the country and on many key issues at the heart of the debate a decade ago.<\/p>\n

British respondents said leaving had hit their main priorities: the cost of living (66%), the economy (65%), youth opportunity (57%), illegal immigration (56%) and trade (56%). Even most leave voters (58%) said Brexit had made illegal immigration worse.<\/p>\n

Asked to identify the primary benefits of Brexit, the most common response, by a wide margin, was \u201cdon\u2019t know\u201d, followed closely by \u201cnone of the above\u201d \u2013 suggesting most British voters now feel Brexit did real damage for no apparent upside.<\/p>\n

That overwhelmingly negative verdict on the decision to leave translates into a strong desire for a closer relationship with the bloc: 75% of UK respondents were in favour. Asked about trade and economic ties, 66% said they should be very or slightly closer.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most strikingly, a large majority (63%) of respondents \u2013 including 57% of those who voted leave in 2016 \u2013 said they would now accept freedom of movement in exchange for closer trading ties, with only 18% rejecting it.<\/p>\n

Even among voters who said their top concern was immigration, 44% said they would back freedom of movement as part of a closer economic relationship, suggesting one of the core drivers of the Brexit vote is no longer central to the UK debate.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s author, Mark Leonard, the director of the ECFR, said the polling showed the EU was open to the UK\u2019s return and that the British public had fundamentally moved on from 2016 \u2013 meaning Europe was now a political opportunity for the UK government.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrexit was the insurgent vehicle for a nation rejecting the status quo,\u201d he said. \u201cA decade on, Brits realise their hopes for a better life outside the EU are unfulfilled and Brexit is undermining the UK\u2019s ability to manage the issues they care about most.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard added that the data showed the \u201cvast majority of citizens are open to a closer relationship\u201d, revealing the existence of a \u201cvery broad permissive consensus for going far beyond the government\u2019s current reset\u201d.<\/p>\n

The report identified three main voter camps in the UK: \u201coptimists\u201d (28%) who view European alignment as a geopolitical necessity; \u201crealists\u201d (35%) who support closer ties but still value US ties; and \u201cloners\u201d (27%) who still prioritise national sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Overall, the survey found British voters favoured Europe over the US as a preferred security partner, with just 18% now viewing the US as an ally and 58% favouring closer defensive relations with Europe, compared with 19% for the US.<\/p>\n

A majority of British voters do not want to buy more weapons from the US, while more than 60% would prefer to follow a \u201cbuy European\u201d policy. Almost two-thirds (63%) also want the UK to participate in developing an alternative European nuclear deterrent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two-thirds of EU citizens would back Britain rejoining the bloc, while most UK voters say Brexit has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-650169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}