In 2016, the then environment secretary Liz Truss supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign and voted to remain in the EU. She has subsequently completed a “journey” to become an arch Brexiter – anointed candidate of the Daily Mail and the hardline anti-EU, European Research Group (ERG) – putting her on the verge of occupying No 10.
Now foreign secretary, Truss recently told the BBC’s Radio 4 that she was “wrong” not to support Brexit in 2016 and that she has now “fully embraced the choice that the people of Britain have made”.
Steve Baker, the ERG’s militant shop steward says she has “completed the journey that the whole nation needs to go on”. Unfortunately for both Truss and Baker, her journey is far more likely to become a circular tour.
The reason is abundantly clear. Many more people are on the same ‘journey’ that she has been on, but travelling in the opposite direction. Truss has a far greater chance of bumping into disillusioned leave voters switching to remain than Remainers following in her footsteps. If Truss does become prime minister she will find herself in quite a different place to the majority of voters in 2024 and may be forced to return to where she started.
Polling on leaving the EU
YouGov has been polling voters about their thoughts on the referendum since August 2016 and has gathered a huge amount of data on the changing attitudes to Brexit. The organisation has asked the same question in 214 surveys: In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU?
There has always been some changing of minds; a churning of opinion at the margin. At the start, little more than five weeks after the referendum for example, 4% of Remainers had already switched to thinking their vote had been a mistake and that leaving the EU had actually been the right decision. Truss may have been among the very first to ‘seize the opportunity of Brexit’ as it were, when Theresa May appointed her to Cabinet as justice secretary in July 2016. If she hadn’t had her epiphany by then it must have come shortly after.
A smaller number of Leavers (2%) went the other way. Waverers on both sides switched to become don’t knows. However, the overwhelming majority, 89% of Remainers and 94% of leavers, stuck with their original vote. The table below shows the polling in August 2016:
Shifting opinions on Brexit
Over subsequent years, as the myriad problems of first understanding and then trying to implement ‘the will of the people’ became increasingly obvious, this position slowly began to reverse. It was noticeable that switching Leavers were starting to significantly outnumber Remainers who were getting behind Brexit.
The last poll, taken on 14 July 2022, shows that while a solid 91% of those who voted to remain in 2016 continue to believe Brexit was the wrong decision, only 75% of leave voters still hold to their original opinion, a slump of a fifth since 2016.
This is not a blip or an outlier. The previous poll earlier in July showed just 77% of 2016 Leavers were still happy with their decision. Back at the end of April it was 76%. There is an absolutely clear and consistent trend of falling support for Brexit which the current chaos in Dover and Folkestone is doing nothing to halt.
While 6% of Remainers have switched to thinking that leaving the EU was the right decision, fully 15% of Leavers now think it was wrong. If this was applied to the original vote, it would easily change the result into a 53:47 win for remain.
The demographics are also changing
But it gets even worse for Truss and the Tory party. Because this only covers actual 2016 voters who have subsequently changed their mind, it doesn’t take account of the significant demographic shift since then.
It’s well known that those over 65 were far more likely to support Brexit, but they are also much more likely to be among the 600,000 or so people in the UK who die each year. Their place on the electoral register is taken by younger voters who are predominantly pro-Europeans.
Comparing the figures from August 2016 with the most recent, there is no age group that has increased their belief that voting to leave was the right decision. This is most marked in younger people (support for Brexit falling from 22 to 10%). Even in the over-65 age group – the only group still holding a shrinking majority for believing Brexit was right – those thinking it was wrong have increased from 27% in August 2016 to 37% now.
It is only a matter of time before all age groups think it was wrong to vote to leave the EU.
Without some rapid improvements in Britain’s fortunes that can be attributed unequivocally to Brexit, it’s very hard to see this trend changing in the short term. At the moment as we head into a recession, a possible sterling crisis, soaring inflation, crippling energy bills and the NHS suffering its ‘worst ever’ staffing crisis, there is little sign of any good news.
In August 2016 the South (not including London), Wales, the Midlands and the North were confident that Brexit was the right decision. All have since become disenchanted and a majority now think it was wrong. There is in fact no region of Britain where a majority does not think Brexit was the wrong choice, and by a significant margin.
None of this is to suggest that a referendum held tomorrow would necessarily be any different from 2016, although the most recent polls asking if the United Kingdom should join the EU or stay out shows a majority would now vote to join.
Truss’s journey may have to become a circular tour
But it does make Truss’s job as the potential new PM that much harder. It will be politically difficult to perform yet another U-turn on the biggest foreign policy issue for generations without leaving her looking foolish and damaging what little credibility she has left, but it may be inescapable. Admitting she was right to campaign against Brexit would at least have the benefit of honesty and return her charabanc to where it was before ambition took over.
The alternative is to go into the next election continuing to argue she was wrong in 2016 when there are mountains of evidence proving beyond doubt that actually she was spot on. It would be quite bizarre and surely a first for any politician in the history of the world.
It would represent the ultimate Brexit contradiction wouldn’t it? No satirist could ever hope to match it.
