To Leave or Not to Leave: 8 Years After Brexit, 63% UK Voters Now Want to Have Closer Ties with EU

A majority of the British voters are now favouring closer relations with the European Union in a dramatic reversal eight years since Brexit.

According to a new study, even the constituencies that recorded the highest vote to leave the European Union are now considering to move in the opposite direction and have closer ties with Brussels, The Guardian reported.

The survey, with around 10,000 voters, found that three times as many adults, around 63 percent, believe that Brexit created more problems than it has solved, while only 21 percent believed that leaving the bloc solved more problems than it created.

The poll is likely to provide a reading of the mood of the nation to Rishi Sunak, who backed Brexit as the way to greater economic success.

The report said that 53 percent of the voters want England to seek a closer relationship with the EU and 14 percent want the UK to become more distant.

In Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire, where the vote to leave the EU was 75 percent in 2016, more than twice the people (40 percent) now want closer links with the EU.

The survey comes as reports released this week showed that the net migration in the UK hit a record 606,000 last year, heaping pressure on the government, which has pledged to cut dependency on foreign labour.

The new figures are in contrast to the government claims that Brexit would allow the UK to “take back control” of its borders.

Immigration has long been a key political issue in the UK and was one of the main battlegrounds of the Brexit referendum in 2016, which saw the country leave the European Union.

Meanwhile, Britain’s economy is also expected to expand just 0.4 percent in 2023, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest outlook document.

UK PM Rishi Sunak will meet France’s president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday where he will raise concerns about immigration.

The report also said that more than half of all the voters in the UK said that the country should issue more visas to allow foreign workers to come to the UK.

Around 19 percent wanted to see more visas generally and 32 percent wanted to see more visas in sectors with labour shortages while only 23 percent wanted to see fewer visas issued.

A data from the London School of Economics suggested that British households paid £7 billion since Brexit to cover the extra cost of food imports from the due to new trade barriers.

The UK remains plagued by double-digit inflation, prompting calls from many employers for the government to do more to stimulate economic output.