Most Britons say Brexit has been ‘more of a failure’

Matthew SmithHead of Data Journalism
May 22, 2023, 10:48 AM GMT+0

YouGov tracker data records the highest levels of Bregret among Leave voters to date

Speaking on Newsnight last week, Nigel Farage told the programme “Brexit has failed… we’ve not delivered on Brexit and the Tories have let us down very, very badly.”

A new YouGov survey shows that the public agree with the former UKIP and Reform UK leader, with 62% of Britons describing Brexit as “more of a failure”, and only 9% considering it “more of a success”. A further 20% describe it as neither, while the remaining 9% are unsure.

Remain voters overwhelmingly believe Brexit has been a failure (89%), while Leave voters are split: 37% also say it has been more of a failure, while 35% see it as neither a failure nor a success, but only 20% currently consider it mostly a success.

Most Leave voters who join Farage in saying that Brexit has been a failure so far likewise pin the blame on the Tories: 75% say that “Brexit had the potential to be a success but the implementation of it by this and/or previous governments made it a fail”.

However, most of those Britons who consider Brexit to be a failure think it was doomed from the start: 56% say “Brexit was always going to be a failure, and there was nothing any government could do to make it a success”. This includes 77% of Remain voters who consider Brexit to be more of a failure.

Currently 72% of Britons say that the government are handling Brexit badly, including 63% of Leave voters.

Bregret reaches new highs

The number of Britons saying the nation was right to vote to leave in 2016 has fallen to its lowest level, at 31%. Most Britons say Brexit was the wrong choice, at 56% (the joint highest, along with November 2022).

The number of Leave voters saying that Brexit was the right choice has fallen to 65% - the lowest level to date. At the same time, the 22% who say that voting to leave the EU was the wrong call is the highest level yet recorded.

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