BREXIT has polarised the UK far more than traditional party politics, a new academic study has found, suggesting compromise and unity over Europe remain a distant dream.
The report found that two years after the EU referendum, 94 per cent of people still identified with the Leave or Remain camps, while just 78% identified with a party.
The two Brexit tribes had also grown in hostility towards each other, with 42% of people taking criticism of their side as a “personal insult”, up from 20% at the referendum.
Leavers and Remainers felt “a lot in common” with those who voted the same way, a view held by 78% of Leavers and 85% of Remainers. The camps were also far apart on non-EU issues.
The report, Brexit and Public Opinion 2019, by the UK Changing in Europe unit at King’s College London (KCL), concluded: “We are a long way removed from the idea that Britain ‘has come together’ to face the challenge of Brexit.
“Social polarization is pronounced and shows no sign of diminishing.”
The report also found people disbelieved facts about Brexit that didn’t fit with their pre-existing views, such as warnings about the impact of no-deal.
National identity was a strong factor, with those identifying as “British” evenly split over Brexit, those Irish or “Scottish only” leaning heavily Remain, and the “English not British” backing Leave by two-to-one.
On Scotland, the report said Brexit “had not proven the constitutional game-changer” the SNP hoped, and indeed had exposed a Leave-Remain “fissure” in the Yes movement.
It said: “Brexit has not made it any easier for Scotland’s nationalist movement to win any future referendum on independence. The more the SNP finds itself in the vanguard of the campaign to halt Brexit via a second referendum, the greater the risk the party loses ground among the minority of its supporters who back Leave.
“If a second independence referendum is ever to be won, it could be crucial that the party keeps its more eurosceptic supporters on board. Brexit looks like more of a balancing act than a springboard so far as Scotland’s nationalist movement is concerned.”
In his contribution to the report, Professor Sir John Curtice said there was no poll evidence that people wanted a second EU referendum, or that a new vote would heal.
There was a “chasm” between Labour and the Tories, with 83% of Labour members voted Remain, and 73% of Tory members voting Leave.
Around 80% of Labour members wanted a People’s Vote, while the same level of Tories opposed it.
Offered a choice between Remain, Theresa May’s deal and No Deal, Labour members plumped 88%, 3% and 5% respectively, while Tories went 15%, 23% and 57%.
Tory members were “intensely relaxed” about no-deal: a third said they would be “delighted” by it, while 55% of Labour would be “angry”.
But if a People’s vote stopped Brexit, 60% of Labour voters would be delighted and 58% of Tory members would feel “betrayed”.
“Chalk and cheese doesn’t really begin to describe quite how polarised the partisans of Britain’s two biggest parties are on Brexit,” the report said. “They are more like two tribes, each of which sees the issue from a completely different point of view.”
KCL Professor Anand Menon, director of The UK in a Changing Europe, said: “This report highlights the fundamental divisions Brexit has created, and in some cases exacerbated, in British society. New Brexit identities have emerged, which seem stronger than party identities. Divisions are also clear on national lines, as well as between MPs and their respective party members.”
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