New polling suggests public attitudes on both sides of the Channel are moving faster than official politics
Ten years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, new polling points to a marked change in public mood: British voters increasingly want closer ties with the bloc, while many EU citizens are open to the idea of the UK returning. The findings do not make rejoining imminent, but they sharpen the political gap between public appetite for reconnection and the cautious official language still shaping London and Brussels.
The European Council on Foreign Relations, publishing new research on Sunday, said its polling found that three quarters of British voters want some form of closer relationship with the EU, compared with only 8% who prefer greater distance. The same ECFR polling also found broad support inside the EU for a British return, with 66% of voters across surveyed EU countries backing UK membership in principle.
The figures arrive two days before the tenth anniversary of the 23 June 2016 referendum, a vote that reshaped British politics, complicated trade and mobility, and removed one of Europe’s largest diplomatic and security actors from the EU’s institutional table.
A public mood no longer trapped in 2016
The striking element in the new research is not simply that many Britons regret Brexit. That has been visible in opinion polling for several years. It is that the argument appears to be moving beyond the old Leave-Remain identity split and toward more practical concerns: living costs, security, migration management, energy and Europe’s place in a more unstable world.
ECFR’s findings suggest that many voters now see closer EU ties less as a symbolic reversal and more as a route to solving concrete problems. That matters because the political vocabulary in Westminster has remained cautious. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has pursued a reset with Brussels, but has ruled out rejoining the EU, the single market or the customs union.
Other polling points in the same direction, though with different wording and levels of intensity. A YouGov tracker updated in June found 59% support for a closer UK-EU relationship without rejoining, and 55% support for Britain rejoining the EU. It also showed that support for the current relationship remains weaker than support for some form of closer settlement.
For Brussels, the shift is politically interesting but institutionally limited. A former member state cannot simply resume its old seat. Any future application would fall under the normal accession route, requiring political will in London, an assessment by EU institutions, unanimous agreement among member states and approval by the European Parliament. The UK would also face difficult questions about budget contributions, regulatory alignment, free movement and whether previous opt-outs could be restored.
Europe’s caution remains real
The polling shows warmth toward Britain, not a negotiated pathway. EU governments may welcome closer cooperation on security, energy, research and trade, while still resisting any arrangement that looks like full benefits without full obligations. That tension has shaped UK-EU relations since withdrawal and remains central to the current reset.
There is also a trust question. The Brexit years left institutional fatigue in Brussels and sharpened concern that a future British government could again reverse direction. For EU capitals, especially those managing enlargement ambitions from Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans, special treatment for a former member would be politically sensitive.
Still, the public shift matters because it changes the backdrop against which leaders operate. The first phase of the UK-EU reset focused on practical cooperation after years of friction. As The European Times reported after the 2025 UK-EU summit, the relationship had already begun moving from post-Brexit damage control toward structured partnership, especially on security and continental stability.
The new polling suggests that public opinion may now be pulling that process further than governments have been willing to admit. For many voters, the relevant comparison is no longer between sovereignty and Brussels control, but between isolation and influence in a world of war, trade pressure, climate insecurity and fragile alliances.
A question returning by degrees
None of this means the UK is on the verge of applying to rejoin the EU. The political barriers remain substantial, and the British government’s stated position remains narrower than the public mood described in the latest surveys. But the question that dominated the last decade is no longer frozen in the language of 2016.
For Europe, the more immediate issue is whether both sides can turn public openness into practical cooperation that improves daily life: easier trade, clearer mobility rules, stronger student and youth opportunities, better security coordination and less bureaucratic friction for families and businesses split across the Channel.
The lesson of the polling is therefore not that Brexit has been undone. It is that the political settlement created by Brexit is still unsettled. Ten years on, the European question in Britain has not disappeared. It has returned in a quieter, more pragmatic form, shaped less by referendum slogans than by the lived costs of distance.
