Philip Rycroft is back at the centre of Britain’s post-Brexit argument, not because the politics has settled, but because the numbers have not. Fresh research mapping voter attitudes 10 years after the referendum suggests support for rejoining the EU is rising, while Labour’s careful distance from the issue may be costing it more than it gains. The findings point to a wider problem: Brexit is no longer only a constitutional question, but a live test of party strategy, voter loyalty and political memory.
Why the latest polling matters now
The most striking figure in the research is simple: 53% of all voters supported a full return to the EU, while 61% backed the government’s current approach to EU relations, though only 19% did so strongly. That split matters because it shows caution rather than enthusiasm. In other words, a majority may accept the current line, but far fewer feel committed to it.
The same research found even stronger support among Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters, with 83%, 84% and 82% respectively favouring rejoining. Among Conservative voters, 39% backed that option, while the figure was 18% among Reform voters. Those numbers help explain why philip rycroft has become part of a broader debate about whether the old Brexit dividing lines are hardening again or being replaced by new ones.
The hidden cost of a halfway house
Best for Britain’s director of policy and research, Tom Brufatto, said there is “inherent risk with halfway houses. ” That warning goes to the core of Labour’s current dilemma. The party’s position is to align with, but not join, the single market, a formula that avoids reopening the old arguments but leaves Britain without a say in the rules that shape trade and regulation.
The research also tested six scenarios, including keeping Boris Johnson’s deal, diverging further, joining the customs union and single market, and rejoining the EU. The most ambitious options are also the most politically difficult. Brufatto argued that rejoining the customs union and single market would require “a deep conversation about sovereignty” because it would mean “outsourcing large parts of all of our regulation. ” He added that no party would be able to carry the public through such a negotiation for long.
That tension is not abstract. Labour’s attempt to ease barriers for farm exports through a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement already offers a glimpse of the rule-taking that could follow. Since Brexit in 2020, the UK has diverged on 76 rules and regulations in relation to those negotiations. For supporters of closer ties, philip rycroft is part of a political moment in which the practical consequences of distance from the EU are becoming easier to point to than the promises that once justified it.
Expert warnings and political pressure
At the Westminster event where the research was presented, the polling expert John Curtice criticised what he called Labour’s “strategy of silence” on Brexit. His warning was not simply about communications; it was about electoral risk. Curtice said Labour could lose more by allowing progressive voters to drift away than by trying to avoid conflict with pro-Brexit parties.
He said Labour had lost about one in 10 voters to Reform, but was losing one in four to the Liberal Democrats and Greens. That pattern matters because it suggests the party’s current caution may be failing on both sides of its coalition. Neil Kinnock, the former Labour leader, was more direct about the long-term trajectory, saying Brexit had inflicted enormous damage on the UK and that Labour would one day campaign to rejoin, even if he would not live to see it.
Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe, said Labour’s position betrayed inherent contradictions in its vision. That is where philip rycroft re-enters the story: as a symbol of how the Brexit question is no longer settled by the referendum itself, but by the gap between what parties say now and what parts of their electorate increasingly appear willing to reconsider.
Regional ripples and the wider European question
The debate is also moving differently across the UK. In Scotland, Brexit is being folded into the broader constitutional argument, with manifesto language from nationalist and pro-European parties presenting it as evidence of damage still unfolding. The Scottish context matters because 62% of voters there backed remaining in the EU in 2016, giving the issue a sharper regional edge than in England and Wales.
More broadly, the research suggests the Brexit question is no longer confined to nostalgia or grievance. It is now bound up with trade frictions, regulatory divergence and the credibility of political parties that once promised closure. If a majority of voters can now be moved toward rejoining, the larger question is not whether Brexit is over, but whether Britain’s main parties are prepared to confront what comes next.
And if that is the case, how long can philip rycroft remain a reminder of the past before he becomes a marker of a future political reversal?
