How solid is opinion shift on Brexit and Rejoin?

This report was published in partnership with IPPR.

Attached are the full report, a full deck of graphs ('just give me the graphs') and a techncial note on our analysis of demographic change and its impact on Rejoin attitudes.

What we wanted to find out

• What are baseline levels of public support on the different possible outcomes to a renegotiated UK-EU relationship, in particular on different variants of re-join and economic integration? Where are these voters’ ‘red lines’, in principle?
• How ‘soft’ or consistent are these opinions? For instance, are they susceptible to different question wordings? Different permeations or trade-offs?

What we did

• Two one-hour focus groups were held with swing audiences. One was with those open to both Rejoin and Stay Out. The other was with Reform curious Labour voters specifically. Held in June 2026.
• Unique demographic analysis to establish how much deaths from, and new entrants into, the electorate are shifting baseline opinion on UK-EU relations.
• A baseline survey of over 3,000 UK voters was fielded 11-15th June via Convergent Opinion.
• A conjoint/vignette experiment with two-arms: a Rejoin and a Closer Relationship deal with randomised benefits, obligations, negotiating times, pro and anti messages across both.
• A ‘mocked environment’ experiment to stress test and attention test different elements of Rejoin and Closer Relationship in a more realistic and aggressive information environment than prior stages.

What we found

• Brexit is now unambiguously viewed negatively by a majority of UK voters. Negativity is strongest in the areas of travel (Brexit is seen to have hurt UK citizens ability to move freely around the EU) and the economy (it is seen to have severely hindered small businesses ability to thrive and grow). None of the pledges of the Leave campaign are seen to have been fully delivered.
• In this context, most polls show large headline support for Rejoin of around 64-36%. Demographic churn has been an important part of this. In England and Wales we estimate that about forty percent of the fall in total support for Leave/Stay Out since 2016 is accounted for by churn in the electorate (older 'Stay Out' inclined voters dying and younger 'Rejoin' sympathisers coming of age). The remainder is composed of 2016 voters who have, on paper at least, changed their mind on the matter.
• However, our stress testing experiments find that support for Rejoin is a fair bit softer than headline polling would suggest, once people are exposed to some of the trade-offs, arguments and hostile opposition framings likely to be involved. Average headline support for Rejoin after stress testing is more like 52-48%, notably lower than the 64-36% we see in topline public polling. This is not fatal for Rejoin, the argument remains winnable and this is just one experiment, but it does suggest vulnerability worth being aware of. Stress-tested support for a closer economic relationship - for instance involving the customs union - averaged 58-42%, making it the slightly more comfortable of the two paths tested.
• Overall, it is striking that stress testing Rejoin seems to wash away or reverse any persuasion effects among Leave 2016 voters, leaving Rejoin as a platform reliant on favourable demographic trends to take it to 52%.
• Our reflection overall is that if voters were offered the chance to rejoin the EU tomorrow - immediately - on precisely the same terms as before, there would likely be a majority for it. But it is the distance between that and the messy reality which creates softness in opinion.
• Specifically, advocates of Rejoin would have to eliminate or neutralise the following factors we found in our work:
  
  - Any commitment to the Euro, however theoretical, sinks Rejoin as a proposition well below majority support, knocking 7-8 percentage points in both stress testing experiments. This happens even if people also see factual counter-arguments about it. It must be taken off the table from the start to even get a hearing.
  
  - At a time of constrained budgets, hostile media attacks on budget payments to the EU alone knocked ~9 points off Rejoin as a proposition.
  
  - Opposition to exiting post-Brexit trade deals was also surprisingly salient among waverers in this area, which is a challenge for the Closer Relationship (eg customs union) proposition too. This may speak to an attachment to the 'sunk costs' of Brexit among voters.
  
  - Also under-rated is voter exhaustion with the issue. In our experiments, any negotiation process absorbing more than 12-18 months of government time hurt the pro-EU position markedly.
  
  - EU citizens enjoying freedom of movement to the UK is no longer the winning argument for opponents of close UK-EU relations that it was in 2016. When framed neutrally to voters, it does not reduce support for Rejoin. However, opposition attacks on it do still damage the Rejoin cause somewhat. This suggests there is a softness in opinion here even if it is not as potent as back in 2016.
• On the other hand, there are several factors pulling people towards Rejoin or a closer relationship which advocates of these positions can leverage - and which opponents of UK-EU integration or Rejoin should be aware of. These are:
  
  - The economy - and in particular small business - is seen to have suffered under Brexit. The single market and customs union add several points on to the support of any future EU-UK relationship, which regulatory obligations in return do not wash away.
  
  -Voters have noticed long border queues when travelling to the EU - it is something tangible closely associated with Brexit and fixing it not only adds support for Rejoin, but makes the politics of freedom of movement more contested than before.
  
  - Finally, defence and security emerges as a major pull factor for Rejoin and closer UK-EU relations generally. The chaotic Presidency of Donald Trump has underlined that the US is no longer a reliable partner to the UK in a dangerous world, creating an openness to a push towards integration with the EU as a response.
• Overall, Rejoin advocates can use the perceived failure of Brexit to their advantage, especially on the economy and travel, but need to seek to replicate the terms of previous membership and minimise government focus on the issue to under eighteen months. Anti-EU advocates can no longer rely on freedom of movement as an open-and-shut opposition argument; their best case tends to run through the 'faff factor' and arguments of priority. In the immediate future, a closer economic relationship - for instance through the customs union - may be a less polarising forward step.