UK Edition
The number of Brits who think that Britain made the right decision by voting to leave the EU is now greater than the number who think the country made the wrong decision. This is according to the latest poll in YouGov’s regular tracker, which has been asking this question regularly since the referendum. Today, 45 per cent say the decision was right, 44 per cent say it was wrong and the rest are undecided. This is the first time since the summer of 2017 when ‘right’ has been in the lead.
The numbers conceal fascinating differences. The view that Brexit was the right decision is shared by 85 per cent of leavers, 73 per cent of Conservatives, 67 per cent of pensioners, 51 per cent of the working-class and 50 per cent of voters in the north. But this figure tumbles to just 7 per cent among Remainers, 15 per cent among 18-24 year olds, 25 per cent among Labour voters, 38 per cent in London, and 40 per cent among the middle-class. Make no mistake: Britain is incredibly divided.
Nonetheless, and contrary to the hopes of Messrs Tusk, Juncker, Blair, Clegg and Adonis, who in recent weeks have urged the Brits to think again, one simple fact remains – there has been no outbreak of mass Bregret.
Why is this? In early 2016, I was asked to write a paper for a firm in the City of London that wanted to know whether a vote for Brexit was likely. At that time, almost everybody was forecasting remain. My answer was simple but unorthodox: ‘It is very likely’. My rationale was based on four factors, which today go a long way to explaining why the Leavers are not for turning.
First, the Brits never fell in love with Europe. We certainly respected what our continental counterparts were trying to build and as economic pragmatists we saw the value in the trade aspects. But we never shared their desire for political integration, a single currency and open borders. Only a minority of ultra-liberals in London and the university towns celebrated the latter.
This was already visible more than forty years ago when, after the referendum in 1975, Sir David Butler made the critical point that while public support for staying in the common market had been ‘wide’ it had never been ‘deep’. There was, he quipped, no girding of the loins for the great new European adventure. He was spot on. From there on the Brits never displayed a strong affective attachment to the EU. They certainly did not identify with a European demos. Even its peak, in the 1990s, only 17 per cent of Britain felt ‘European’. This was the foundation of Brexit.
Second, over the next four decades the issue of our EU membership became wrapped up in the issue of immigration, which amid unprecedented rates of migration, opened up a much broader reservoir of support for Leave. Reactions to these issues exposed a deep divide over values; on one side stood older and social conservatives who wanted sovereignty returned and migration controlled – on the other, millennials and liberals who saw less value in the nation state.
This is why turnout was so high at the referendum – because how you think about these existential issues is ultimately about your sense of self, your values, your identity. And because these things don’t tend to change we are unlikely to see an outbreak of mass Bregret.
For Leavers, this was never about self-interest. It was not a transactional vote but was rooted far more in concerns about the nation and community, something that Remain strategists never really understood. Many expected an economic bump, but they did not only think about GDP.
This brings us to the third factor. Remainers invested far too heavily in claims about an economic armageddon, which completely ignored what was concerning Leavers. As we now know, Britain’s economy has proven far more resilient than the likes of George Osborne and Goldman Sachs predicted. According to both, we should have suffered a recession.
Britain’s 1.8 per cent rate of growth is lower than elsewhere yet well above the forecasts of the IMF, Office for Budget Responsibility, Bank of England and British Chambers of Commerce, which varied between 1.1 and 1.4 per cent. Last week, one major bank concluded that the ‘risks to growth are diminishing’ while JPMorgan raised its forecasts for 2018-19.
The economic events of the past eighteen months have discredited Project Fear. Yet despite that Remainers have not learned. Instead of switching track they have doubled down on the same old tired narrative – warning after warning, forecast after forecast. All this does is confirm to Leavers that they have no real interest in talking about sovereignty, migration, borders and belonging.
Lastly, even if voters were up for a conversation about the referendum vote, Remainers have no credible and appealing messengers. Tony Blair is loathed by majorities in almost every group in society, Nick Clegg is associated with broken promises, and Lord Adonis embodies the non-elected fanatical liberal elite that might hold an audience in Highgate but would be laughed out of the room in Doncaster.
If Remain are trying to close rather than widen the gap, they may want to ask their unofficial spokespersons to make way for a new generation.
Bregrets? they've had a few... but tough luck, Remainers, the majority still wants to leave