Support for rejoining EU after Brexit at an all-time high, says leading pollster

Support for rejoining the European Union is at its highest level since the Brexit vote – but political leaders need to seize the opportunity or it will all come to nothing, the UK’s leading polling guru has warned.

Professor Sir John Curtice said public opinion had shifted despite a relative silence from many parties and “therefore, if you were to start to make the argument... you should be able to move the dial further”.

But a future referendum could still be on a knife edge, Sir John suggested, and won or lost in how the argument was framed.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, he said that 61 per cent of Britons now say they would vote to rejoin, compared to 39 per cent who say they would stay out.

“That is the highest figure that it has been, as an average over any extended period of time, all the way back to 2016,” he said.

But he added that most people who voted in the 2016 referendum “have not changed their minds”. Only about 18 per cent of Leave voters say they would now vote to rejoin, while 11 per cent of Remainers would stay out.

However, there are now 10 years’ worth of people who were too young to cast a ballot in 2016 who can now vote and “they are very heavily in favour of rejoining”, he said.

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Some older voters, who were more likely to vote Leave, have also died, while polls suggest others who could vote but did not are also “balanced also to be in favour of rejoining”.

Asked if he saw the trend continuing, Sir John, who was speaking to The Independent as part of the Europe: The Way Back campaign , said: “Other things being equal, yes.”

“Public opinion has shifted quite considerably, partly for demographic reasons, even though prior to 2024, apart from the Greens and the nationalists, nobody was arguing in favour of rejoining,” Sir John explained.

“Not even the Liberal Democrats were making that case. They're kind of now moving in that direction, but [Lib Dem leader] Ed Davey didn't want to talk about it before 2024 either. So one can argue that the public has shifted despite the fact that they have been given very little indication from their political leaders that they should do so. And that, therefore, if you were to start to make the argument, if you come up with arguments that are anywhere halfway decent, then you should be able to move the dial somewhat further in your direction.”

But he warned the framing of the argument could still define the outcome in any referendum – and said Andy Burnham is going to have to “sell” his post-Brexit reset with Europe to the public.

While the headline figure in favour of rejoining is high, the public is still concerned about issues such as whether the UK would have to become part of the eurozone or the Schengen travel area to be readmitted.