[scott_w]

I’ve only read half the article and stopped because it seems the author is hopelessly ignorant about some basic facts:

- The EU won’t start the process to admit the UK until joining is politically settled

- Until the Tory party is also onboard with rejoining, it can’t be politically settled

- The Tory party will only get onboard when it’s no longer possible to win power without wanting to rejoin

- Despite there being over 30m voters in the UK, our system ensures only a few hundred thousand swing voters decide the government

- Those voters are still in favour of Brexit

- Finally, ALL polls showing a majority rejoin exclude “Don’t knows,” meaning there’s no actual majority for rejoin

The above facts explain why the Labour Party is not campaigning to rejoin. Until a number of those are changed, the UK simply will not rejoin the EU.

[ProxCoques]

"ALL polls showing a majority rejoin exclude “Don’t knows”

That'll be like the referendum then.

[scott_w]

Except in the referendum, many of those “Don’t knows” turned into “Leave.”

My point is that you can’t just read a poll and confidently declare there’s popular support for rejoining the EU.

[mrcartmeneses]

I see the EU referendum as being like the question: do you want to cheat on your wife?

And any future referendum as being: do you wish you hadn’t cheated on your wife?

So basically it was 51% leave and it will be 55% regret.

The proverbial has hit the fan in the UK since Brexit. It is all very real now for people and not just some silly wet dream

[scott_w]

That doesn’t answer any of my points and doesn’t answer the core reason Brexit won’t be reversed any time soon: rejoining is not politically settled.

[nprateem]

Sources for the last 2 claims?

Labour are doing what any good politicians do and are avoiding a divisive issue to try to appeal to both sides.

[scott_w]

The “source” is the fact Labour are not talking about rejoining. We don’t have access to their internal polling, for obvious reasons, but they clearly believe in this strategy and the 20pt lead in the polls suggests they’re right to.

EDIT: I missed the source for the polls. This YouGov poll shows a big “Don’t know” block which is completely missing from the news reports.

Poll: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2023/0...

Sample report: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/23/britons-who...

[mpweiher]

According to those numbers, rejoin is 55% and Leave + Don't Know is 44%.

It always helps to read the sources you cite...

[scott_w]

I did and that’s not how polls work.

- Those numbers are much closer than 60/40, for a start

- People change their mind because of a campaign

- The poll doesn’t show how different constituencies will vote

- To get elected, you win constituencies, not the popular vote

- YouGov polling puts “leaving the EU” down at 17% in importance https://yougov.co.uk/topics/education/trackers/the-most-impo...

- Meaning the public don’t want to talk about it

- Labour are focus-grouping EVERY MESSAGE; if they decided rejoin is bad for them, it’s because it’s not what key voters want

[mpweiher]

> I did and that’s not how polls work.

Since that is exactly how polls work, not sure how you could have read it.

> Those numbers are much closer than 60/40, for a start

Only because I lumped all of the "Don't Knows" into "Leave". Which is unrealistic, but a lower bound for the vote for remain that is above what you claim. So your claim isn't just not right, it isn't even wrong.

If instead I lump the "Don't Knows" in with "Remain", it turns into 68/31. The truth is probably somewhere between 55/44, which is still a 10% spread, and 68/31, which is 37% spread. And 60/40 is not splitting the difference in the middle, it is giving more of the undecideds to leave.

> To get elected, you win constituencies, not the popular vote

To leave the EU, you win the popular vote in a referendum, not individual constituencies. To rejoin would most likely be the same.

And it turns out that the result is even more lopsided in thinking Brexit was mistake when you look at constituencies. In effect the entire country is now Remain.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-regret...

etc.

[scott_w]

There’s a number of things missing:

- This poll doesn’t do constituency breakdown

- How many of those people would actually vote?

- Do they know what rejoining entails?

- There is no campaign on rejoin

- In such a campaign, the Brexit media will absolutely spell out how hard rejoining actually is

- Only 17% of people actually think this is important

- The EU still wouldn’t re-admit the UK because nearly half the fucking country still wants to be out!

Speaking of referendums:

> To rejoin would most likely be the same.

No, to rejoin, first you elect a party that either campaigns on rejoin or to hold a referendum. Both are guaranteed vote-losers because of what I posted above: 83% of the country doesn’t want to reopen the Brexit discussion. In addition, with the UK’s voting system, you can have 55% support your position and hand an 80-seat majority to the 45% who oppose.

> And it turns out that the result is even more lopsided in thinking Brexit was mistake

This is simply a garbage poll and doesn’t back up your claim at all. “Do you regret” is not the same as “should we rejoin.”

Let’s go back to the core issue: in the best case, half the country wants to stay out the EU. That is NOT “politically settled” in any sense of the term. Until that changes, with all major parties supporting rejoin, actually rejoining is total fantasy politics.