Remainers and Leavers: Can you switch identities?

Controversial: Politics & Govt Brexit
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Continuing the discussion from Brexit has completely failed for UK, say clear majority of Britons – poll:

In another thread, there’s a discussion about a poll that states that a clear majority of Britons feel that Brexit has failed but that doesn’t make them “remainers”.

Looking at Brexit from the outside, what does it mean to be a “remainer”?

From what I can gather, remainer has become an identity that can overshadow a political identity.

Can you change your status from leaver to remainer if you voted for the opposite or is it etched in stone at that moment?

5 years after the Brexit vote, this poll shows that people continue to have a strong Brexit identity. But if more people think that Brexit failed, can they change their identity? What would it take for a person’s status to change?

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/both-remainers-and-leavers-retain-strong-brexit-identity-5-years

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I think “Remainers” are those of us who voted to Remain in the poll?

A lot of us still feel a lot of anger over the referendum, the way we were dragged out against our will and resentment and intense dislike for those who brought Brexit about and voted for it

I don’t think you can become a Remainer, it’s dependent on how you voted at the referendum

Now that it’s becoming obvious that it was a bad decision that is doing our country and children a lot of harm, some Brexiters who voted Brexit realise they were wrong, and are experiencing Regrexit.

But that doesn’t make them a Remainer, they voted how they voted and did the harm they did, so let them stay Brexiters so we know who to blame!

Some of them believed all the wild promises about having their cake and eating it, no illegal immigration etc or had a fantasy of turning the UK back to a 1950s lifestyle if they voted Brexit

So, although they now feel Brexit was a mistake, they think it’s because the politicians haven’t delivered the Brexit they wanted ( which was always impossible)

So they are still Brexiters because that’s the way they voted, and aren’t Remainers because they didn’t want to stay in the EU or believe in it

And they’re experiencing Regrexit and think Brexit was a mistake because if the way it turned out but that still doesn’t mean thy’re Remainers or let them off the hook on blame

They could become Rejoiners though, and push for the damage to be undone by us rejoining. But most of them won’t because they’re still the same people with the same beliefs who dragged us out in the first place

Some Remainers like me are Rejoiners, while others believe the damage is done and we should try to make the best of the tragedy and re-establish close ties with the EU

So my answer would be no, you can’t switch from being a Brexiter to a Remainer but you can come to realise you were wrong and become a Rejoiner

I honestly don’t know any Remainers who’ve switched to thinking Brexit was a good idea, there probably are some and I hope they get the help they clearly need!

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:smiley:

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Is it just possible that Brexit has had no effect on life in the UK at all.
Life is no better or indeed no worse?
That the challenges faced by the UK are way more broad, deep, complex and long standing than any trade agreements with Europe.
Like the UK has high blood pressure, high Cholesterol type 2 diabetes so now coffee drinking has been banned. But the health has not miraculously improved but has not got any worse either.
That leaving or remaining was never a magic panacea like changing Government is never a panacea either but people still believe in quick fixes which are rarely quick or rarely fix anything

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For young people it’s worse .
They can no longer live or work in Europe easily
For people who wish to live and work in Europe it is now a tedious and difficult visa situation …
Traveling to the continent is more difficult and restrictive .
90 days and then you have to be out .
For people exporting goods to the continent it has meant tedious paperwork
Altogether everything is more difficult .

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Perhaps the line should “Brexit has had little effect on the majority of people in the UK”. The trade barriers imposed on export/import to the EU have definitely had an impact and for some a very significant impact. This is especially true for people who were involved in the import/export of food stuffs and small batch imports/exports. For a few, the travel restrictions to the EU have had a significant impact and the forthcoming EU visa scheme will further that impact. It also seems clear now that UK inflation was impacted by Brexit and the UK GDP has been impacted by Brexit. So its wrong to say that Brexit has had no effect on the UK as a whole.
It is true, however, to note that there are bigger world wide issues than Brexit and the impact of the subsequent trade agreement. Its hard to argue that Covid, war in Ukraine, conflict in the middle east and such things are not hugely impactful to the UK. Therefore the question is whether being out of the EU has helped or hindered the UK in the face of these wider issues. And it seems hard to justify a claim that being out of the EU in the midst of these wider issues in fact benefitted the UK or even made no difference. I’d also argue the comparison to bad health and then not drinking coffee is poorly made and not accurate.
PS remaining was never going to be a magic panacea and no-one ever claimed it would be, did they? Claims about leaving, on the other hand …

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While I agree there has not been any significant benefit to the UK by Brexit after just 6 years equally there is no significant evidence that joining the EU in 1973 improved the lives of the majority of UK citizens after 46 years.

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This reminds me of the type of question you would have in an A level examination paper. The only bit missing is “discuss” at the end.

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While I agree there has not been any significant benefit to the UK by Brexit after just 6 years equally there is no significant evidence that joining the EU in 1973 diminished the lives of the majority of UK citizens after 46 years.
Both your statement and my version are utterly meaningless “what if” speculation.

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Remainers and Leavers: Can you switch identities?
Well that’s been the problem hasn’t it. With the referendum result being so close, half the country wanted to make a go of it, and half didn’t. Unfortunately for the dreams of most brexiteers the people who make decisions in the UK were on the remain side and had to be dragged kicking and screaming (and still are) into a world without the crutch of the EU to cover up their mistakes and poor decisions. Had the remainers took it on the chin and pulled together to make it work, life would have been so much better than the mess we now find ourselves in. It’s a bit like Bruce described the changeover from imperial to metric. Had we all been made to accept the metric system at the outset, most people would now be comfortable and happily using metric and not looked back. Instead, we have a system where half the people use metric, and the other half are still using imperial…

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So you blame the remain camp for the failings of Brexit. Sorry, that does not wash nor does it reflect the events from 2016 to 2020. The Johnson government was primarily full of Brexit supporting ministers and the influence of the ERG group was strong. The agreement reached was always going to be a fudge - because Brexit itself is problematic and harmful. The fudge was the balance between separation and harm. Re-writing this as mendacious remainer influence has no basis of fact. It is simply a poor attempt to divert blame away from the core cause of the problem, Brexit itself.

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I strongly disagree Lincs, Boris only used brexit to feather his own nest…Wasn’t he originally a remainer that changed sides?
Even though some of the government were supposedly supporters of brexit, why cut off the hand that feeds you. A bit like you Lincs…

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I understand. Your only hope that Brexit is not a bad idea is that it was simply badly put in place. And if those who really, really wanted a really, really proper Brexit were unable to achieve this then, for you, the only explanation is that some people prevented that. It could not possibly be that putting a really, really proper Brexit in place would be much more damaging that the Brexit we ended up with. It could not be that even ardent Brexit fans in parliament could see the damage such proper Brexit would cause. So that means some people, and they must have been remainers, scuppered it all. Obvs.
Or, rather, it was plain as the nose on your face that the harder the Brexit the more damage caused and no-one (apart from those blind to the realities of trade) thought that a no-deal Brexit would be workable. Even hard line Brexiteers sided with Johnson’s quite hard, quite damaging agreement. Which all sounds like exactly what happened.

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Maybe (and probably) not everything is more difficult. However I have not yet seen a pro/contra list showing the benefits and the drawbacks on either side.

Maybe you will remember last years long thread here about finding the benefits of Brexit. It was nearly impossible to find any at all if I remember correctly.

My impression is that elderly people see no difference as they are barely affected and younger people see huge differences (for the worse) as they are are affected.

We could open a google online document where you can write down all benefits and drawbacks of Brexit.
That could be interesting…

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Looking from outside I am having a hard time to figure out why some try to present the EU as the big enemy which the UK can now be glad to be freed from.

The UK was one of the big players and rule makers. There are statistics about how many laws and “stupid” regulations were created or at least supported by the UK.

How is the EU suddenly the biggest enemy? That does not make sense I think.

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Why were there so many laws? I thought the EU was simply to encourage trade between countries in Europe? To dispense with all the red tape of bureaucracy? To be a member of an institution that makes trade easier between nations is a good idea and it’s certainly one that I would vote for but apparently the EU is a closed shop tp outsiders and they have to sell their country out to be eligible.

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I do not know why. I do not even know whether there are “so many” laws as I am not a lawyer. It *feels * as if there are many laws and that there is a lot of bureaucracy in the EU I admit. However I have not and cannot compare it to other countries or other trading blocks bureaucracy.

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I voted remain but I see many faults in the direction the EU is headed. Just because the original idea was “ever closer union”, it doesn’t mean you have to take that slogan literally and keep trying to push individual nations that do not want to be one country, and for historical reasons of hating each other didn’t become one nation over the centuries, together despite them kicking and screaming. There’s a lack of respect there at the centre. Many nations do not want an EU army and do not want to be told what they can and cannot do legally and with their domestic policies.

I’m very much in favour of a shared trading block and free movement. I think most people are. (perhaps some are misguided about the latter but they complain when the prices of goods go up, or they can’t find a builder or the hospital is understaffed).

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I think that I can imagine what you mean. There is one Brexit benefit - at least for me and maybe others too - and that is: The EU has been there and I always took it to be inevitable. I felt only advantages (easy travel, same currency, buy things from each country, no roaming costs). Now that the UK referendum was on the table I began to invest time into investigating what the EU is, what it means, how little I knew about details.

Having learned so much in the last years, if there was a German referendum today, I would vote remain.

(P. S.: I have placed the commas in the last sentence where I would place them when writing in German) :smiling_face:

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I’m not sure your farmers would agree. I understand why some want to go the way they are headed but it is very much a “frog in boiling water” mistake the way they are doing things - to integrate with stakeholder engagement would take at least a century of incremental changes. There is a lack of respect from the centre which is not to be unexpected with such a collossus of a system. It seems Brussels is very out of touch and far too interfering.

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