Labour Cannot Rely On An EU Reset – Or Rejoin Pledge – To Win Over Voters

Illustration by Tracy Worrall

It is no secret that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are looking for a closer alignment with the EU in a bid to revive the country’s struggling economy and Labour’s dire position in the polls.

It is likely that a pledge to rejoin the EU would be part of any Labour leadership contest. So, could a bold reset with Brussels, including potentially promising to take the UK back in altogether, be a silver bullet to Labour’s domestic woes? It may not be as straightforward as that.

Voters certainly do not think that Brexit has been a success. 

Together with Charlesbye Strategy, Merlin recently carried out polling of 4,000 voters and focus groups of voters of all persuasions across the country. Just 30 per cent of those polled say Brexit has been good for the country, compared to 49 per cent who say it has been bad.

Of those currently intending to vote Green, 74 per cent say it has been bad, along with 51 per cent of Labour voters, 37 per cent of Conservative voters and 33 per cent of Reform voters. In fact, not even a majority who say they intend to vote for the face of Brexit, Nigel Farage, say it has been good. In focus groups, when you ask what is to blame for the current state of the economy, many still blame Brexit.

At first glance, this looks promising for a government in desperate need of a popular lever to pull and a dramatic reset with the public. Indeed, 46 per cent of voters believe that rejoining the EU would improve their living standards, compared with just 21 per cent who believe the opposite. Voters feel even more optimistically about the prospects of closer trade with the EU when it comes to making them better off.

Even accepting ‘freedom of movement’ does not appear to be as controversial as it was with voters a decade ago. When prompted that a closer relationship with the EU would likely involve accepting freedom of movement for EU citizens and increasing immigration in the UK, 32 per cent say it makes them more supportive of the idea, 36 per cent say it doesn’t change their view, and 32 per cent say it makes them less supportive.

Most promisingly for Labour given its recent struggles, 42 per cent of voters say they’d be more likely to vote for a party in a future election if they said they would rejoin the EU, including 64 per cent of current Green voters, 64 per cent of Labour voters, and 54 per cent of Liberal Democrats (many of whom said it would make no difference to their vote, perhaps a sign of their loyalty to the Lib Dems). Given Labour’s struggles in Scotland, it is worth noting that Scottish voters remain more critical of Brexit than the country as a whole: 59 per cent of Scottish voters say it has been bad for the country, compared to 49 per cent of Brits overall. It is statistics like these that are no doubt front of mind for those in No 10 looking for a way to consolidate Labour’s now heavily depleted left flank.

On paper, this makes a strong political case for rejoining the EU. However, even though many voters are now looking back on Brexit with regret, their biggest regret is putting their hope and trust in politicians to deliver it. When asked what is to blame for the outcomes of Brexit, the most common response given is the politicians that failed to deliver it (32 per cent compared to 15 per cent who say it was always going to fail or 18 per cent who blame the voters who chose Brexit). Much of the public has still not forgiven politicians on both sides for the protracted political chaos and heated division of the 2016 to 2019 Brexit years.

Politicians now are even less trusted than they were in 2016, with those voters that Labour has lost since the 2024 election to the insurgent parties on the left and right the most distrustful of politics, politicians and the government. The handling of Brexit has significantly contributed to this increased lack of faith in the political system. It is unlikely that governing politicians now will be trusted to take us back into the EU, any more than voters retrospectively trust politicians’ handling of taking us out.

It is unlikely that governing politicians now will be trusted to take us back into the EU, any more than voters retrospectively trust politicians’ handling of taking us out

Indeed, by a 2:1 margin, voters oppose the use of so-called Henry VIII powers to take the UK back into the single market. Conservative, Reform, Green and Liberal Democrat voters all think the government should face scrutiny on any such decision, with only current Labour voters disagreeing (and even then, only just).

Putting the decision back into the hands of the people could also be fraught with political difficulty: 35 per cent say a new Brexit referendum would be helpful for the country, compared to 43 per cent who say a new Brexit referendum would further divide it. Labour, Greens and Liberal Democrats do overall think it would be helpful, but at least three in 10 of each group are concerned about what the impact of a second referendum on the country would be. 

A majority of voters like the idea of being in the EU again, however they have huge hesitations about the potentially fiercely contested political processes of going back in and politicians’ abilities to successfully deliver it.

These latest elections provided yet another data point for the crumbling of our two-party politics, showing that the forces that drove Brexit in the first place have not left the electorate, if anything they have grown stronger. Labour lost hundreds of council seats to voters abandoning the party for Greens and Reform, driven by their increased likelihood to think that the system isn’t working and the country needs change. They are also most likely to think that the economy is unfair and the country is fundamentally broken.

Voters are as disillusioned with SW1 as they have ever been and feel that they have been promised change by successive politicians only to be let down every single time. Would the promise and process of rejoining the EU win back these voters and restore trust in the politicians they hold in such low esteem? I’m not so sure. 

Scarlett Maguire is founder and director of Merlin Strategy

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