British voters ready to integrate with the EU, says new survey

And an overwhelming majority of Brits surveyed believe Brexit has had a “negative impact” on every issue they care about, including the cost of living crisis, immigration, opportunities for young people and matters relating to the country’s security and defence.

The report, authored by the ECFR’s founding director, Mark Leonard, says: “10 years on [after the 2016 referendum], the sky has darkened amid trade wars, real wars, a rising China and an erratic and confrontational Donald Trump. Brits have realised that their hopes for life outside the EU have not been fulfilled. Brexit itself is now the status quo, and they have turned against it.

“Surprisingly, not only do majorities of British voters think Brexit has damaged the country in various ways, but they are open to a new relationship with Europe that hitherto seemed out of the question. These include embracing closer trading links, freedom of movement and supporting a European nuclear deterrent (with a plurality even favouring British participation in a European army). In part at least, Britain’s new pro-European majority spans the Leaver and Remainer camps.

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“The polling indicates that the bleak international situation has transformed domestic politics as well. Respondents hold both EU member states and the EU itself in much greater esteem than they do the US; a strong plurality identify more common interests with the EU than with the Commonwealth or the US; and many more Brits believe their continental neighbours would help them repel an attack than trust Washington to do so.”

The findings of the report, Brexit isn’t working: British voters are ready for a European future, are stark. Asking participants who were too young to vote in the 2016 referendum how they would vote on the UK’s membership of the EU now, 70% said they would vote to join and just 11% to stay out, with 19% saying they didn’t know or wouldn’t vote.

On a more generally asked question of whether, in hindsight, those surveyed thought the UK was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU, 57% say it was wrong to leave and 30% right, with 13% not knowing.

And given two statements and asked which came closer to their view, 63% opted for “The UK should establish a closer trade relationship with the EU, even if it means allowing UK and EU citizens to travel, live and work freely in each other’s territories”. Only 18% opted for “Establishing a closer trade relationship with the EU is not worth it if it requires allowing UK and EU citizens to travel, live and work freely in each other’s territories”,

Leonard says in his report that several factors explain the paradox between its findings and the fact that Reform continue to lead in the polls. Swathes of the media ecosystem still portray reopening the European question as tantamount to treason, not least the fact a full decade has now passed since the Brexit vote.

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“The chaotic world of 2026 is significantly different to that of 2016 and in many respects darker and more daunting for a state like Britain – with the spectres of Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping looming large,” he writes. “With the UK’s main trading relationship damaged by Brexit and its security one undermined by an unreliable US president, it should thus not be unthinkable that voters’ outlooks have shifted, even drastically, in response. And that is without reckoning with the demographic churn of the electorate.”

He adds: “It may well be the case that the pro-European turn revealed by the polling is shallow and perhaps even fleeting. If so, whether it translates into a real policy shift will depend on whether advocates of a closer relationship can mobilise and firm up this sentiment, or whether Eurosceptics can reframe debates and move opinion back their way.”

Asked in four areas whether the UK’s future relationship with the EU should be closer or more distant, in all four – the economy and trade, military and defence, energy supply and technology and digital services – a clear majority said either “much closer” or “slightly closer”.

And on the binary question of who the UK should prioritise a relationship with – Europe or the US – 63% opted for Europe and just 19% the US.

This report is based on four online surveys fielded among adult UK voters by the polling firms Mandate and YouGov on behalf of the ECFR. They were: economy survey (2,120 respondents, fielded May 7-8, 2026); immigration survey (2,134 respondents, fielded May 11-12, 2026); security survey (2,126 respondents, fielded May 12-13, 2026); and a general survey (2,146 respondents, fielded May 13-14, 2026).