A decade after the UK voted to leave the European Union, a majority of Britons now believe the decision was wrong and want to rejoin, according to the latest polling. YouGov data shows 57% think Brexit was a mistake, while 55% favour going back into the bloc. Even a quarter of those who voted leave now consider it a failure.
The UK formally left the EU on 31 January 2020, on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic, after years of argument and negotiations. Control over immigration was at the heart of the Leave campaign. Writing in The Times two months before the 2016 referendum, then Justice Secretary Michael Gove said: “Because we cannot control our borders…. public services such as the NHS will face an unquantifiable strain as millions more become EU citizens.”
“57% think Brexit was a mistake and 55% want to rejoin, a decade after the UK voted to leave the EU.”
In the year ending March 2016, 803,000 people entered the UK, of whom 294,000 were from the EU, according to the Office for National Statistics and The Migration Observatory. Since then, EU arrivals have declined. But a post-Brexit immigration system introduced in early 2021 triggered a surge from non-EU countries, peaking at nearly 1.5 million in the year ending March 2023.
The latest provisional ONS figures for the year ending December 2025 show total immigration of 813,000, with net migration at 171,000. Of those arriving, 627,000 came from non-EU countries and 76,000 from the EU, while 642,000 people left the UK. EU net migration was negative: 42,000 more EU citizens left than arrived.
“We live in a post-Brexit world, and it’s time people started acting like it,” said EU relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, dismissing rejoining as an “unrealistic mirage”. His view was echoed by prime-minister-in-waiting Andy Burnham, who said Brexit had been “damaging” but warned that pushing to rejoin would leave the UK in a “permanent rut” re-running old arguments.
Yet the debate has been reignited after former Health Secretary Wes Streeting – a contender to be chancellor under Burnham – said Brexit had “left us less wealthy, less powerful and less in control than at any point before the industrial revolution”. He added: “We need a new special relationship with the EU, because Britain’s future lies with Europe, and one day, one day, back in the European Union.”
Younger voters are particularly keen. A poll by More in Common found that 60% of Gen Z (aged 18–28) would vote to rejoin if given the chance. Meanwhile, calculations based on ONS data published by the Financial Times show that around 15% of those who voted leave have died in the past decade, compared with 10% of remainers. An exclusive Mirror poll earlier this month found that 58% of people who would vote in a second Brexit referendum would back rejoining.
As the UK marks a decade since the historic vote, the arguments over Europe show no sign of fading.