Brexit’s unpopularity reignites debate in UK over EU ties
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/01/17/brexit-s-unpopularity-reignites-debate-in-uk-over-eu-ties_6749520_23.html
Posted by No_Firefighter5926
Brexit’s unpopularity reignites debate in UK over EU ties
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/01/17/brexit-s-unpopularity-reignites-debate-in-uk-over-eu-ties_6749520_23.html
Posted by No_Firefighter5926
46 Comments
Conservatism as popular as communism is on practice. Just 2 flavors of dogmatic distopia.
This whole Trump bullshit has even made my father, a hardcore leave voter to now say leaving the EU was a mistake.
With the older fuckers who were very pro-Brexit dying off, and the younger voters being very pro-EU, I think we’ll have serious conversations about a return within the next 10-15 years as long as Reform don’t win the next election.
If the EU will let us back, I guess.
And the funniest thing is this Trump stuff may actually affect how well the far right, pro-Trump parties do. When even the comment section of GB News and the Daily Mail are wanting the UK to boycott the US and stand firm with Europe, you know that hell has frozen over.
If Starmer announces he will rejoin the EU, he will win the election.
The Brexiters are all gonna vote Reform or Tory anyway, regarldess of what he does. So he’s not going to lose votes. All it’s gonna do is make people who were gonna vote Green or Lib Dem switch back to Labour in order to rejoin.
The UK and rest of EU have very complimentary economies, it really didn’t make much sense. So much potential for both sides was lost with Brexit, but it can be reversed. Like so many things that I would like to order from the UK, I just can’t because of Brexit.
Brexit, bought and paid for by the Russians and their billionaire fan club. Johnson et al should be investigated and changed and we need to get back into our top table place in the EU.
They’re welcome back. It was embarrassingly stupid to make such a move based on a referendum that was almost too close to call. Shit like that should require a 2/3rd majority.
Absolutely he will win if he agrees to rejoin. The USA relationship is a dogs breakfast now. Even South America has a closer relationship with the EU than the UK does these days.
Everyone knows Brexit was fueled by Russian stooges, complete lies from the right wing (350million to the NHS cough cough) and a constant stream of propaganda to fool the public.
Brexit was part of the Russian strategy as was Donald Trump.
In the face of a frankly insane US, Europe is now alone.
If the EU had any sense it would allow the UK to regain the same terms it had previously. Now more than ever we need a quick UK rejoin for a strong EU.
I want my UK passport to have more power than it used to….I want to retire to France. So please bring it back.
“reignites the debate” is a bit strong.
The debate is fairly absent in the UK.
Domestic economy, small boats and Trump are by far the bigger topics.
Starmer promised a reset. Nobody really knows what that means. There’s some debate about that but not a lot. When starmer actually proposes a change it will be more relevant.
Given recent developments, it now seems quite obvious that the UK will return to the EU within a decade, or perhaps even sooner.
However, it would not be as it once was. London would need to significantly reduce its main dependencies on the United States, especially regarding the Five Eyes framework.
Rejoining is popular only in the scope of an idealized deal where everything goes back to a 2016 status quo. Once you start introducing factors like euro adoption, no rebate etc, public approval falls of a cliff (not to mention the concessions individual members would extract just to lift their vetoes). I don’t know why the conversation keeps coming up, it’s a political impasse.
The UK should just rejoin the EU. I mean the whole Brexit „Referendum“ wasn’t really a referendum, it was basically an opinion poll because it was non binding. Starmer needs to shift the discourse and to do that, you need to take a bold move.
UK please come back, we love you.
-a Dane
Brexit may be unpopular but that doesnt necessarily mean people want to reopen the question? And currently a substantial chunk appear to want to vote in the people who are significantly responsible for Brexit.
As a Brit, I would love it if we rejoined. Leaving was a footgun moment that didn’t need to happen. Before that can happen, we need press reform, to get rid of the influence of far-right nutjobs like Murdoch; impartiality laws, etc, where only facts can be presented as news, and not lies and the wants of billionaire press owners. We also need the current generation of pensioners and gammons to die off, or we will be stuck in a constant cycle of in-out debate, and the risk of the likes of Nigel Fromage being elected. It would not be good for either side.
Come back brothers!
If they clearly rejected the ruzzian Agent Nigel Farage in the next election, there might be a chance.
Bunch of Britts in here are saying just let us in with the same privileges as before :DDDDD
I dont even know what to say to that..
My sense is that events will make closer integration inevitable. Trump will continue to be a belligerent and will catalyse the UK into stronger alignment and perhaps rejoining the EU.
The generations that drove Brexit are still an electoral force but mortality has a way of sorting these things out. Farage and his ilk are an impediment also but I sincerely hope that his mendacity will be consigned to the dustbin of history especially as the ‘special relationship’ becomes increasingly threadbare and the electorate realise he offers nothing but divisiveness.
Brits, as a French, please come back.
Bordel de roast beef !
I think the best way going forwards is to secure stronger ties with the EU where we can, whilst pointing to Farage for being so vocally “go make ties with america, leave the eu!!!”, and the conservatives for such a shit brexit. Then come next general election have an explicit mention of a referendum
“we don’t need the EU, we can cosy up more to the US and prosper”. Oops.
Wait, would we even be open to taking them back as a member country, at this point?
For any Albertan (or Quebec, for that matter) separatists lurking here, please take a long, hard look at Brexit. This is a fraction of the disaster that awaits should a referendum on separation succeed. The leaders of these movements who are promising prosperity after separation are lying to you, the same as the politicians who promoted Brexit lied to the UK people.
edit: I misread the sub I was in, and assumed it was r/worldnews when I posted this. There are zero Albertan separatists lurking in r/europe. (Maybe some Quebec separatists.)
covert foreign interference influenced brexit
now that the foreign influences are much more brazen, it should be obvious this was a stitch up the whole time
Not enough Brexiteers have gone to the other side yet…
Putin, Xi, Trump: divide them, coerce them.
Apes together strong.
I stopped buying from AND selling to the UK over brexshit and so has every other business owner I know so…yeah…god job guys.
My only concern is what terms Brussels will demand. It’s very unlikely that they will just say “come back, you can have your old deal”. I see lots of comments here saying you want to welcome us back. I bet you do! As much as we like to talk ourselves down we would be a massive boon to the EU and this is a chance to get us back on a great deal for them.
I voted remain, and literally cried when the results came out. But I can’t in good conscience support going from a vassal of the US to a lesser partner of the EU.
You will demand no vetos and no special treatment and disregard the fact that all the other big EU nations still have their own special arrangements and opt outs.
It makes me so sad that we should be joining together as a continent as basically now the last bastion of freedom and democracy but it looks like we ran out of time.
The UK was simply the first victim of the fascists’ attempt to break up the EU. They’re trying it with other countries as well. The US, Russia and China all want weak and divided European countries.
Hopefully the UK has learnt it’s lesson and realises it’s not special and that we need the EU a lot. Then we can apply to rejoin (hopefully they’ll let us back in) and get fully involved in the project which can help shape a better world for everyone. That’s the potential of the EU.
Brexit ruined our country. Lies seeded into lies. I hope many regret their decision. I imagine may are too stubborn to admit. If he makes it a policy to rejoin EU and EU would have us back. He will win
We had our MAGA moment already and im afraid we’re about to make the same mistake with Reform. The bots have pierced through our less informed population (which is a lot.)
I thought the people of the UK once lamented that they had had enough of listening to the experts! Michael Gove said. Then Theresa May said it was the will of the people. Boris Johnson then delivered it in oven-ready style. They can‘t possibly want to change their minds, can they?
It was a real shame, the brexit. I griefed as I saw the UK going the wrong path.
But Starmer won’t come back. He said so himself. It’s a matter of respecting the referendum. Not right away, anyway.
A UK comeback to the EU will take years.
It’ll probably be settled first by a trade deal similar(not the same, though) to what they had when they were in the EU.
Problem is the UK media is very anti-UK and only wants what’s worse for the country and best for their owners, and a fair chunk of the electorate have outsourced their thinking to that media.
Would love to rejoin in a heartbeat as never wanted to leave but it’s not a reality for the UK or the EU anytime soon. As others have stated there’s a lot of scars from UK citizens both sides of the divide and the emotional toll is tangible. The bad actors are still in play stirring the pot and our media is still a rightwing disgrace. We’re a risk from an EU perspective; rightly so.
Brexit was akin to a divorce and those rarely run smoothly, are full of emotion and very few facts. The kids involved always get damaged and screwed over too, in this case the kids are the citizens.
Bad actors who pushed this should be hunted down and ostracised at best.
We should be looking at closer ties and rejoin the customs union right now. Even that poses challenges.
Defence collaboration is key but then you have the French massively pushing back because they don’t want to share the pieces of the pie without extra concessions on external factors. UK is obviously the largest competitor in this space. I really like our cousins across the channel however sometimes they really struggle with fair compromise alongside burning the entire objective down for a minor differences which is frustrating.
Until we can all unite, act like adults and share we’re all in a worse position. Every nation has their own self interest at heart which is understandable but also part of the challenge.
It’s the outcome that truly matters and compromising to a mutually beneficial position.
Please rejoin, we miss you.
I never liked Brexit but I hope now my countrymen have seen the damage wrought by it. I hope to see the UK and the EU back together within the next decade. We have issues facing us from both the east and the west and the only solution is a stronger Europe.
Being single state is easier to be pushed around, go figure
UK is like a cat. Meows so bad to be left out. Only to meow just as hard to be left back in.
Debate has only been re-ignited because the current government have been using it as an excuse to explain away their economic ineptitude, its also being used by the PM and his potential leadership challengers to get MP’s on side for an inevitable leadership challenge.
Once the details of what the UK joining the EU or SM would actually look like or entail support drops off a cliff. They leave the subject intentionally vague because the devil is in the detail.
Brenter
You are European, come back