Majorities in all three countries believe Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU, including 75% of Scots

Key takeaways

  • 56% of people in England, 61% of people in Wales and 75% of Scots believe Britain was to wrong to vote to leave the EU
  • Just 11-12% of English and Welsh people think Brexit has been more of a success than a failure, with this falling to only 5% in Scotland
  • Majorities in England, Wales and Scotland back rejoining the EU, but only in Scotland do the public support rejoining without the UK’s former opt-outs on the Euro and Schengen area
  • Scottish Leave voters are consistently more negative about Brexit than their counterparts in England and Wales

Ten years ago next week, the United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave the European Union, though not all corners of the country were as enthusiastic in their support for this decision: while 53% of English and Welsh voters backed Leave, just 38% of Scottish voters did.

Having already examined Britons’ attitudes towards Brexit a decade on, new YouGov polling in Scotland and Wales allows us to examine whether a Brexit divide still exists between the constituent members of Great Britain.

Majorities in all three countries today believe that Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU, though the scale of these majorities still reflect the differences in the results of the 2016 referendum. Fully 75% of Scots believe that Britain was wrong to leave the EU, compared to 61% in Wales and 56% in England.

This is relative to three in ten adults in England and Wales (29-31%) believing Britain was right to leave the EU, double the rate in Scotland (16%).

Likewise, 77% of Scots believe that Brexit has been more of a failure than a success, relative to 65% of those in Wales and 59% of adults in England, while the proportion who feel a success has been made of Brexit stands at 11-12% in England and Wales, compared to a mere 5% in Scotland.

However, the persistence of this difference in opinion north and south of Hadrian’s wall is not solely down to Scots being less likely to have backed Leave in the first place. While around nine in ten Remain voters in all three countries (89-92%) say Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU, nearly four in ten Scottish Leave voters (38%) agree, compared to 22-24% of their counterparts in England and Wales.

What future relationship do English, Scottish and Welsh people want with the EU?

With the publics in England, Scotland and Wales all seeing Brexit as a failure, what kind of future relationship do they want with the EU?

Sizeable majorities in all three countries – 74% in Scotland, 70% in Wales and 59% in England – would support Britain having a closer relationship with Europe, without rejoining the EU, single market or customs union itself.

Only marginally smaller majorities in England (54%) and Scotland (70%) back rejoining the EU, while in Wales the number wanting to reverse Brexit drops more noticeably, to 59%.

But when it comes to rejoining the EU without Britain’s former opt-outs, as some EU officials have suggested would be the case if the UK wanted to regain its membership, only the Scottish public still tend to support rejoin, by a narrower margin of 51% to 33%.

In England and Wales, just 34-37% of the public would support rejoining if the UK were required to join the Euro and participate in the Schengen passport-free travel zone, while a greater 44% would oppose EU membership on these terms.

Nonetheless, support for Britian’s current relationship with Europe remaining where it is stands at just 30% in England, 27% in Wales and 21% in Scotland, while even fewer (11-21%) would like to see Britain further loosen its ties with the EU further.

Again, Scottish Leave voters tend to be more positive about the EU than their counterparts in England and Wales. For instance, they support a generally closer relationship with the EU by a margin of 67% to 21%, putting them closer to English Remain voters (70% vs 14%) than English Leave voters (52% vs 31%) on this question.

Likewise, while English Leave voters tend to support Britain’s current relationship with the EU remaining as it is (by 47% to 30%), Leave voters in Scotland are evenly split on the status quo (40% vs 38%).

Nonetheless, most Leave voters in all three countries oppose Britain rejoining the EU, including 57% of Scottish Leavers, rising to 69% in England. A closer relationship outside of the EU is the only option polled backed by a majority of Remainers and Leavers in England, Scotland and Wales.

See the full results here and here

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Photo: Getty

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