Majority of Brexit voters ‘would accept free movement’ to access single market

The report said the EU and UK were very vulnerable to global events and should ‘go big and go fast’ in restoring links to make both stronger. Photograph: Benjamin Cremel/AP

A majority of Britons who voted to leave the EU would now accept a return to free movement in exchange for access to the single market, according to a cross-Europe study that also found a reciprocal desire in member states for closer links with the UK.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election as US president had “fundamentally changed the context” of EU-UK relations, the report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank said.