With Brexit once again dominating Twitter feeds, Channel crossings in the headlines, and all eyes on Nigel Farage, you could be forgiven for thinking we’ve all woken up in 2016. But does the rise in so-called Bre-gret mean that the electorate who only three years ago voted in Boris Johnson on a promise to get Brexit done are now demanding that Britain re-joins the bloc? Our latest research suggests that emboldened Remainers shouldn’t get their hopes up.
There is no doubt that some degree of Bre-gret exists. Asked how they would vote if the referendum were to be re-run, 58 per cent of voters opt for Remain and just 41 per cent say Leave. Many working-class voters who backed the Tories for the first time in 2019 feel particularly let down and angry that, far from seeing the benefits of Brexit, they are being squeezed more than ever.
But beneath those headline Bre-gret figures is a different story. Just one in 20 Brexit voters have actually changed their mind and would now vote Remain. The rest of the shift is driven by a changing electorate. More significantly, when asked the question of whether Britain should consider rejoining, just 29 per cent of the public agree.
So, what explains this discrepancy between emerging Bre-gret and paltry support for rejoining? Most people believe that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the 2016 vote, Brexit is done and the job of politicians is to make it work. In fact, interpreting Bre-gret as a desire to rejoin risks once again misjudging the public mood. In 2016, the political establishment underestimated public discontent with our political settlement. Today they risk underestimating public exhaustion.
There is also a warning here for Labour. While our research finds many in the party’s base would be enthused by the prospect of rejoining, swing voters – those who have either switched to Labour since 2019 or who voted Tory and now are undecided – say by a margin of 47 to 16 per cent that if Labour pledged to re-join they would be less, rather than more likely to vote for the party.
So if a re-run of debates about Brexit is a non-starter, what about the potential return of the Godfather of that movement Nigel Farage? Here our research finds our politics could well be headed back to the future. While it’s hard to spin the 2.7 per cent of the vote Reform UK secured in Thursday’s Chester by-election as the sign of a party on the up, our research suggests the return of Farage could turbo-charge a new revolt on the Right.
When asked about a hypothetical party led by the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader, some 10 per cent say they would definitely vote for such a party, rising to 20 per cent among voters who switched to the Tories in places like the Red Wall. Double that number put their chances of voting for such a party at seven out of 10 or more.
When asked why they would vote for a Farage-led party, the overwhelming answer is the Government’s failure to stop illegal immigration and small boats. This issue is electoral kryptonite for the Tories. While recent electoral history shows winning seats is hard for new parties, even a modest share of voters defecting from the Tories would be enough to turn a Conservative defeat into electoral annihilation.
Some will dismiss the notion of a Farage return as far-fetched. But there is no doubt that the combination of very real voter anger, combined with the failures to tackle illegal immigration, has created the right conditions for a disciplined party of the populist Right to succeed. Boris Johnson was right to remark in 2019 that many voters in the Red Wall had lent the party their vote. The risk for the Tories in 2024 is that failing to deliver on the promise of Brexit and to tackle illegal immigration is looking like it might be enough to make voters decide that, next time, they’ll lend them to Farage instead.
Luke Tryl is UK Director of More in Common
First published, The Telegraph, 4th December 2022
