Three years after Brexit was concluded — and approaching seven years since the referendum — Bregret is in the air and not just among those who put their cross in the Leave box in 2016. A heady mix of inflation, cost-of-living crisis and tax rises, with no sunny uplands of an economic growth or business upswing, has led to an outbreak of buyers’ remorse. Matt Goodwin, a pollster whose research has focused on the changing views of Brexit and Red Wall voters, noted that “the trend of Bregret is accelerating and looks set to cause a growing problem for the Conservative Party”. It has also shaped opportunity and some pitfalls for Labour, which may well end up inheriting the task of reconnecting the UK to a suspicious and touchy institutional Europe, itself facing divisions on energy policy and the response to the Ukraine crisis.
Do we Bregret rien, a bit or a lot? As things stand, the numbers of outright Bregretters is 54 per cent. What has changed is the number of convinced Leavers — down 12 per cent and the commensurate rise in “don’t knows”.
