A clear majority of the British public now believes Brexit has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration, according to a landmark poll by Opinium to mark the third anniversary of the UK fully leaving the EU single market and customs unions.
The survey of more than 2,000 UK voters also finds strikingly low numbers of people who believe that Brexit has been of benefit to them or the country.
It’s become undeniable.
My mother was all in on Brexit, she started out fiercely declaring it’s what the country needed.
Then she said it’s going to benefit the country soon, then said it needs some time.
Then she said that everything going wrong was unrelated to Brexit. Then said its not that bad, and the eventual positives will balance out.
That’s the opinion shifting over the years. She now admits it was a mistake, “but how could we have known?!?”…
Tbf, there were multiple scenarios, and most people thought they were going to end up with an EEA arrangement at least.
Of course, anyone who knew anything about the statutes knew it wasn’t going to happen, but there was a lot of wishful thinking going around.
Saying that most Brexit voters thought anything about an EEA arrangement is giving them too much credit imo.
Their thought process was as shallow as “we should be independent, get the foreigners out, save EU membership fees, then everything will be good”, with no thought about the reality of the situation and how it will be achieved.
A lot of them wanted hard Brexit just because negotiating a deal was taking too long, because in their minds it’s as simple as just leaving.
All these views were rampant as Brexit was all things to all people.
At least your mom acknowledges it was a mistake.
Your Mum’s journey seems quite positive, overall. Is she now in favour of re-joining? If not, then she still has a long way to go.
My Dad has a good pension and a good job at the same time. He won’t notice that things have gotten worse for most people, and if he does I don’t think he will see the correlation anyway.
Ask her to get off Facebook and/or check what she sees on the news. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think Facebook is a big part of why it happened. I’m convinced the Kremlin pushed Brexit propaganda on social media in an attempt to divide the EU.