The great Remoaner hope is that as we all see quite how difficult Brexit is going to be we reconsider and call the whole thing off. That doesn’t seem to be the way it’s working out. If anything, it’s the other way around. Now that we see how intransigent, silly and bloody minded the EU is more of us want to leave even more. Or, as we might put it, every time Verhofstadt, Juncker or Barnier open their mouths then support for Brexit grows. Not that we should be surprised by that – those of us who have been paying attention these past couple of decades have had our let’s go and let’s go now views formed by just those three and their utterings. Actually, their existence.
Euroscepticism remains at historically high levels in the UK according to a study that also suggests EU detractors are becoming more convinced that leaving the EU is the right choice for the country.
The proportion of people wanting to Leave the EU or reduce its powers has grown steadily and significantly over the past two and a half decades according to research conducted by John Curtice and Sarah Tipping at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).
The more we’ve had experience of the institution, the more we’ve understood about what they really mean by ever closer European unity, then the more we’ve decided not to have any of that:
The number of Britons who want the UK to leave the EU has jumped since 2015, a poll shows.
The annual British Social Attitudes survey revealed that rising numbers of respondents are now firmly convinced by the case for departure.
The study said 36 per cent of interviewees wanted to leave the EU, up from 22 per cent in 2015. The proportion who wanted no change fell to 19 per cent, down from 27 per cent.
The more we’ve seen of their actions in trying to frustrate that decision to leave the more we’ve decided that decision to go was the right one.
It’s getting close to the point that we should actually give in. Call a second referendum and get on with it – because we’d win with an even larger margin this time around.
The poll numbers have changed because Brits have seen that the economic depression caused by the threat of imminent withdrawal never happened, and when the country planned the details of Brexit, the only major problems were the unreasonableness of the European negotiators, and the possibility that Westminster would do comparable harm afterward by way of replacement. The next step is for the US to exit NATO, so that spoiled children like Donald Tusk, nagging us we don’t have many allies left, will have to spend their own money on their own military defense, rather than using our dues and diverting… Read more »
Well the first referendum (1975) went 75% for remain (33 leave for every 100 remain).
The second referendum (2016) went 52% for leave (108 leave for every 100 remain)
The trend has been building for a long time.
One would expect a third referendum to produce a stronger leave vote in any case.
But imagine a third referendum with the government rooting for leave!
The problem with that is that another referendum would sold by the government as a choice between May’s “brexit” and remaining in the EU.
If “leave” won, it would be interpreted as a mandate for May’s pointless BINO rather than actually leaving the institution.
The alternative would be a three way vote, but that wouldn’t produce a result of over 50% for any option and maintaining the status quo would be the natural response to such a result.
As a service to readers (the Daily Mail is hardly confidence-inspiring in its reporting), here’s a link to the actual report:
http://natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/british-social-attitudes/
But, surprisingly, its commentary on Brexit is as reported in the DM.
Just like in the referendum campaign, every time the Remain campaign opened their mouth, Leave support jumped. Unfortunately, every time somebody in the Leave campaign opened their mouth, Remain support also jumped. We could have had a Brexit landslide if only Vote Leave hangers-on had kept their bloody gobs shut.