LONDON Britain left the European Union three years ago, but the wound of the separation will not heal.
British opinion polling agency Yougov the August survey already 55 percent of the respondents consider the break-up a mistake. Almost a third thought Brexit was the right solution. The number of regrets has steadily increased since the separation decided by referendum.
62 percent of the respondents think that the separation has failed.
Half of the respondents would now vote for EU membership. Almost a third would support a divorce.
Support for the EU was also visible in the streets last weekend. Twenty thousand protest marches in central London and demanded rejoining the EU.
The demonstrators were dressed in capes and berets decorated with the EU star. The signs demanded a return to free movement.
A Finnish professor who lived in Britain for 25 years was also present Arttu Rajantie. Rajantie, who teaches quantum theory and the origin of the universe at the famous Imperial College, has previously spoken publicly in favor of EU membership. He says he came to the march to wake up Britain’s decision-makers.
– Over the years, it has been clearly seen that Brexit has been a disaster for Britain. The people have already woken up to it. Opinions have changed, but politicians are still very reluctant to talk about it, Rajantie said while carrying a poster that read “scientists for the EU”.
According to Rajantie, it seems that the disputes about immigrants and the influence of the European Union on decision-making that were behind the Brexit referendum result are no longer as important to the British as before.
– Now that the consequences of Brexit have been seen, people’s worries about these issues have decreased. I would say that immigrants are viewed more positively than in 2016, partly because it was seen that the fault was not with those immigrants, he thinks.
Brexit promises did not materialize
Before the referendum, politicians who supported Brexit promised that Britain would be able to afford to increase the public health budget by hundreds of millions of euros. Britain left the EU in 2020, and the situation in hospitals has only gotten worse since then.
Brexit lobbies also assured that leaving the EU will curb immigration. Leaving the EU has enabled the government’s efforts to tighten immigration policy.
The government is trying to push through a reform according to which a large proportion of asylum seekers would be sent to Rwanda to wait for the asylum application to be processed. The ministers have even threatened to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights if the project is otherwise not successful. However, asylum seekers still arrive by boat across the channel. After leaving the EU, more people have moved to Britain than before.
In Britain, there is a debate about whether the current problems with the economy, hospitals and immigration are caused by Brexit, the past covid pandemic or the Russian attack on Ukraine.
Distributed anti-Brexit stickers at the demonstration Archer already blame Brexit or government incompetence. He sees the change in his own everyday life.
– The government has removed the legal advice given to families, which the EU obliged member countries to do. Depreciation affects single-parent families in particular. Brexit has made trampling on human rights even easier, Archer worries.
Arriving at the demonstration from Cardiff, Wales Phil Dorey is certain that Britain’s problems are caused by Brexit.
– Prices have risen. Our economy is not growing. The rivers are full of sewage. The Northern Ireland border is a problem. Musicians can’t easily go on tours in Europe, he enumerates.
In the Brexit vote in 2016, those who wanted to leave won by only a small margin. The decision to leave was therefore made based on a very narrow majority. Dorey calls for a social debate.
– The result of the referendum was respected, but was it a good idea? Is people’s lives better now? The answer is no, he fumes.
The opposition party would negotiate new EU agreements
Britain’s ruling Conservative Party and the opposition Labor Party have made it clear that they do not intend to reapply for EU membership, nor do they seek the EU’s customs union or common market. There are parliamentary elections in Britain next year, but it is not believed that EU membership will become an election topic.
Chairman of the Labor Party Keir Starmer however, promises to renegotiate trade agreements with the EU when the agreement is next reviewed in 2025 – if the party wins the election.
Among other things, he wants to streamline foreign trade and reduce border inspections of food and animals. Starmer would also like an agreement with the EU on the return of asylum seekers.
The Conservative Party accuses Starmer of driving Britain back to the “starting box”. The party fears that because of Starmer’s plans, Britain would have to accept a large number of unwanted migrants from the EU.
Britain returned to EU scientific cooperation
Britain took a rare step closer to the EU at the beginning of September, when the country returned as a member of the world’s largest scientific cooperation program Horizon. At the same time, it rejoined the planetary and environmental monitoring program Copernicus. Britain left the programs when it left the EU in 2020.
During EU membership, Britain’s strong science sector clearly benefited from the program. Horisontti finances science projects annually with 95 billion euros. Britain received more money for its own projects than the country paid into the program.
For the last three years, Britain continued scientific cooperation with EU countries, but it had to finance the projects entirely by itself. This made Britain an uncertain research partner.
Arttu Rajantie, professor of theoretical physics, describes that British projects always continued for a few months at a time, so the work lacked longer-term certainty. Many researchers left for more financially stable universities in continental Europe.
The interruption of free movement between Britain and the EU still makes it difficult to do science in Britain. According to Rajantie, the number of researchers from other parts of Europe has also decreased at Imperial College.
The problem with getting researchers and their families to Britain is the bureaucratic and expensive visa application. In addition to the visa, new arrivals have to pay a good 700 euros per year in public health care.
– These increase the threshold to arrive in Britain, because they are financially significant costs for an individual researcher, says Rajantie.
You need a chubby bank account for a British university
Britain is still not part of the Erasmus exchange program for university students. Students coming from the EU to British universities have to pay expensive international student fees, on average 30,000 euros per year. Rajantie says that this is too much for an ordinary Finnish student.
Finnish students are no longer seen in classes in basic education because of Brexit.
– I have not yet come across a single Finn who would pay the current tuition fees of an EU citizen. All Finns studying here seem to be dual citizens, says Rajantie.
Rajantie is worried that research cooperation will deteriorate for a long time due to the current problems, when EU and British students and researchers do not network.
– In science, it is very important for a researcher’s career to make contacts at a young age by going abroad to study and work. Often, the contacts created at that stage are the ones that remain throughout the career, Rajantie laments.