Starmer Is Playing With Fire With His Brexit Betrayal

A new academic survey of British attitudes to national sovereignty has revealed a huge gulf between what the British public thinks and what our political class says we think.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer and a chorus of like-minded supporters from other parties, including the Lib Dems’ Ed Davey and pro-EU Conservatives, insist we need a Brexit ‘reset’. They argue that the majority of British people want a closer relationship with the EU, even if that means sacrificing national sovereignty.

But this is not true. Dr Richard Johnson, a senior politics lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, has sought to establish what the public really thinks about who should be calling the shots on decisions that affect them. Most polls tend to ask leading questions, such as ‘Should we be working more closely with our neighbours?’, which produce answers that sound favourable to rejoining or realigning with the EU. Johnson’s poll asked straightforwardly: who should be in charge of key policies?

The poll was conducted through YouGov, a credible pollster, and used a large representative sample of over 4,500 adults. The questions presented 20 different policy areas that had previously been constrained by EU membership. Crucially, the questions did not directly mention ‘Europe’, ‘the EU’ or any other supranational institution.