“Like a ship without a captain”
Many Brexit advocates regret leaving the EU
1/31/2023 12:23 p.m
52 percent of the British population voted for Brexit in 2016. Today, just a third of Brits think it was a good decision. Even in the former Brexit stronghold of Thurrock, citizens are now showing remorse.
“I voted for Brexit, but I regret it,” says Maria Yvars from Grays. In the 2016 referendum, the population of the east English city voted overwhelmingly for Great Britain to leave the EU. But three years after breaking ties with Brussels on February 1, 2020, many in the former Brexit stronghold regret their decision.
Yvars feels betrayed by the politicians. “They didn’t tell us all the facts, they told us things that aren’t true,” criticizes the 42-year-old psychologist. “Now this country is like a ship without a captain,” she says.
Not only Boris Johnson, leader of the Brexit campaign, had to resign as Prime Minister last year. His successor, Liz Truss, also left the post long ago; she wasn’t even able to stay in office for six weeks. Great Britain is reeling from one crisis to the next.
Thurrock constituency was a Brexit stronghold
72.3 percent of voters in the constituency of Thurrock, whose largest city is Grays, voted for Brexit – more than in almost any other constituency. Across the country, approval was just 52 percent. Eurosceptic populist Nigel Farage chose Thurrock as the backdrop to present his anti-EU manifesto in 2015.
Thurrock is an old industrial area east of London at the mouth of the Thames. Many migrants from Eastern Europe live there. The constituency also includes the city of Tilbury with one of the country’s most important container ports. The region has been suffering from economic problems for years, and the current crisis, with an inflation rate of over ten percent, is making the situation worse. After a series of bad investments, the regional administration went bankrupt in December.
The pedestrian zone in the center of Grays is lined with bargain shops selling £1 items, interspersed with charities and betting shops. “Permanently closed” is written on an empty shop window.
Corona, war or Brexit?
The government blames the economic misery on the corona pandemic and the war in Ukraine. However, the people in Thurrock are increasingly blaming Brexit, which cut off access to the European single market via the English Channel.
“Yes, I voted for Brexit and I wish I hadn’t,” says a woman in her 50s who wishes to remain anonymous. Most people she knows feel the same way. “Look at the country, it’s a disaster, isn’t it?”
Support for Brexit in the UK has never been so low, according to a YouGov Institute poll released in November. Less than a third of Britons therefore still consider leaving the European Union to be a good decision.
“We have lost EU funds!”
“What did the Brexit supporters expect?” asks an employee of the state and free NHS health system in Grays, who would have liked to have stayed in the EU. “We have lost EU funds!” Saving the NHS was part of Johnson’s Brexit pledge. However, the health system is on the brink of collapse, workers are on strike, even nurses for the first time.
Britain is the only country in the G7 group whose economy has not yet recovered from the pandemic. The budget regulator OBR expects that the EU exit will cause the British economy to shrink by around four percent in the long term.
Elaine Read, a 73-year-old who used to work in finance in London, has no regrets about Brexit. “I would probably vote for it again,” she says. “So much has happened as a result of Corona and the war that we didn’t have the opportunity to see the advantages of Brexit,” she argues. “I’m still for Brexit,” says former docker Ray Yates. But the improvement in the situation will “need time, at least ten years”. And “a new government” is also needed.