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00:00Well, today marks five years since the United Kingdom finally left the European Union following
00:05the lengthy Brexit negotiations.
00:07In 2016, Britons voted by 52% to 48% to leave the EU.
00:12It was not a legally binding referendum, but the conservative government promised to respect
00:18it.
00:19Now, polls show that a vast majority of Britons think leaving the EU was wrong.
00:23To discuss this and more, I'm joined by Mariam Sarrachi, an associate professor of
00:28comparative politics at the University of Reading.
00:30Hello to you, and thank you for joining us.
00:33Five years on from that fateful date, how is Brexit viewed today in the UK?
00:40Well, you're right in pointing out that a wide majority of people think it was wrong
00:47to leave.
00:48It has been, you know, the public opinion has been quite stable on it for a while, at
00:54least 2023.
00:55When you dig a bit deeper, though, what does that mean in practice?
00:59I've argued recently it's more of a sense of resignation rather than regret.
01:07Because when you ask them to rejoin, you know, the majority is not that big and also it's
01:13very conditional.
01:15So if you, you know, if you say, oh, if you rejoin and then the EU asks you to do this,
01:20and it might very well be the case, we don't know what rejoin, what those rejoin negotiations
01:24are going to throw at us.
01:27And that support is sort of is conditional, right?
01:29If you ask, for example, joining the euro, which is unrealistic, but say that this is
01:34one of the conditions, then support for rejoin drops even further.
01:40And there is still polarization on that, right?
01:42So what there is agreement on, definitely, is that we should have a stronger relationship,
01:50closer trading relationship, especially with the EU.
01:54But rejoining is still a bit far-fetched, I would say.
01:56Right.
01:57What to do as an alternative is very unclear, very debatable.
02:01But the YouGov poll I was looking at moments ago cites just 11 percent of people that say
02:07Brexit has been more of a success than a failure.
02:12That's a really damning statistic.
02:15It is.
02:16It is.
02:17And if you look at, you know, reformed UK supporters, conservative supporters, leave
02:23past leave voters, you then see a different picture.
02:26You see that they are more on the fence.
02:28They don't say it's a success so that we can take that.
02:31Right.
02:32They don't admit it.
02:33Not a lot of them admit it was more of a success.
02:35Right.
02:36But they are more on the fence.
02:38And they seem to be when you dig deeper in the public opinion analysis, they seem to
02:42say, well, you know, if we had better politicians, if we had better negotiators, Brexit is not
02:47done.
02:48It's not done the way I would have done it.
02:49Right.
02:50So there is still a fine line to thread.
02:53It's it's it could still be very polarizing.
02:55Yeah.
02:56And there are a couple of asterisks that I think deserve to be mentioned over these past
03:00five years.
03:01There was the pandemic, the war in the UK, in Ukraine, the cost of living crisis.
03:05So it's five years, really enough time to be a fair judge.
03:10Well, it is, I think, if you look at the economic analysis and you then compare the UK with
03:16other countries that have gone through covid and have gone through, you know, the war in
03:19Ukraine and the energy crisis, you definitely see a Brexit specific impact.
03:25And even, you know, even the UK government and our own analysis from various departments,
03:30but also from the Office of Budget Responsibility, they're very clear.
03:34Trade in the UK is 15 percent lower than it could have been if we were still in the EU.
03:40Right.
03:41So we're still doing this sort of comparisons with with other countries and we what could
03:44have been 15 percent lower and the overall economy four percent smaller.
03:51So this is 100 billion pounds.
03:55So economically, it's quite the story is quite clear that UK is quite a bit poorer.
04:01And on the other promise on immigration, which was another promise of that campaign, net
04:07net migration levels have not changed.
04:09It's just that the composition that has changed.
04:11So we have EU citizens migrating, but we have an uptick of non-EU.
04:18So net migration overall stayed the same.
04:20So we haven't solved that particular issue that, you know, some had in the UK.
04:30Migration is quite stable.
04:32And we have made that you were that's clear, even subtracting the covid effect and the
04:37energy crisis.
04:38OK, OK.
04:39So some of these voters, they they want more trade with the EU.
04:42That much is clear.
04:44What is Keir Starmer's government going to do about that?
04:48It is, as I as I was mentioning in the beginning, it's quite a, you know, particular fine line
04:54to thread.
04:55Right.
04:56Because you don't want to reopen that polarization.
04:57And some of the options might be more polarizing than others, especially, you know, rejoining
05:03also because we don't know what the rejoin negotiations are going to entail.
05:07Right.
05:09So there is scope, I think, in public opinion for, you know, maybe giving up some regulatory
05:13alignment.
05:14There is scope, for example, on student mobility.
05:15I think UK public opinion would be fine with that.
05:18A lot of leavers also want a closer relationship rather than a, you know, an even more distanced
05:24relationship.
05:25So there is a window of opportunity.
05:27But I think they have to thread very lightly and carefully because the potential for exploding
05:33those divisions is still there.
05:35Maryam, you've rightly pointed out a number of times.
05:38There's so much uncertainty as to what's next.
05:40But I'm going to put you in that hot seat and make you guess anyway, the EU open to
05:45the UK one day returning.
05:47Do you think a return is ever possible?
05:50Ever likely?
05:51How about that?
05:52Well, then, you know, I might have my hopes and dreams, right, that come into that.
05:59Not in the near future, I wouldn't say.
06:03And again, it's really contingent as you as you may be.
06:07You're trying to push me here, but you can spin and sell everything in politics.
06:11Right.
06:12So there is a window of opportunity.
06:13A future government might be able to sow.
06:16It's about sowing the seeds and maybe in the future, not in the short term, I don't think.
06:21All right, Maryam.
06:22Thank you very much for that.
06:23I appreciate that.
06:24Maryam Sorachi speaking to us here.