Remodelling the UK’s relationship along lines similar to the EEA was frequently described as a ‘rebalancing’ rather than pulling up the drawbridge to the world.
- Catherine Barnard
A new report on public attitudes to the future EU-UK relationship reveals a “striking degree of consensus” that full Single Market access should be retained, while skilled EU migrants – those with a job to come to – should be given entry to the UK labour market in return.
Professor Catherine Barnard and Dr Amy Ludlow, from Cambridge’s Faculty of Law, spent early 2017 canvassing opinion from hundreds of people across the East of England through a series of debates and workshops in schools, community centres and even a prison, as well as gathering views in streets and town squares.
This fieldwork was conducted in locations ranging from the strongly pro-Brexit, including the Lincolnshire town of Boston where the highest Leave vote (75%) was recorded, to Remain strongholds such as the city of Cambridge itself, which voted 73.8% to stay.
The researchers found that when the public were asked to indicate preferences on the big issues of Brexit, many participants wanted full Single Market access with no free movement or payment to the EU – the position commonly associated with Boris Johnson’s claim that the UK can ‘have its cake and eat it’, something which the EU rejects.
However, when people were presented with current viable options – EU membership, European Economic Area (EEA), Customs Union and ‘hard Brexit’ (i.e. non-membership of the Single Market) – they recognised the need for compromise, and reached an overall consensus that a deal closer to the EEA ‘Norway model’ might be best, at least in the short term.
“The European Economic Area option was consistently seen by Leave and Remain voters alike to be an acceptable compromise that allows limits to freedom of movement and reduces the UK’s financial contribution to the EU. People wanted full access to trade in goods and services with the EU,” said Barnard.
“Remodelling the UK’s relationship along lines similar to the EEA was frequently described as a ‘rebalancing’ rather than pulling up the drawbridge to the world. There was an almost universal desire among the study’s participants for EU citizens who are economically active or want to study in the UK to be able to continue to come.”
The report, produced as part of the UK in a Changing Europe (UKCE) programme, of which Barnard is a Senior Fellow, also highlights the anger and disappointment people still hold at the conduct of politicians and the media during the referendum campaign.
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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