Today marks five years since Britain’s exit from the EU – and Brits are not thrilled about how it’s turned out.
Fresh YouGov polling, published to mark the anniversary, shows more than half of Brits think it was wrong to vote for Brexit in 2016. Some 55% of Brits back rejoining the EU – with the same figure saying it was wrong to leave. In 2016, 52% of people voted to leave the EU while 48% were in favour of staying in.
Two-thirds of Brits think Brexit has had a negative impact on the cost of living, while 65% of Brits say Brexit has had a negative effect on the economy and 52% think it has been bad for the NHS. YouGov’s poll, which surveyed 2,121 adults in Great Britain between January 29 and 30, also found Leave voters are most dissatisfied with the outcome Brexit has had on immigration levels, with some 50% saying it has had a negative impact.
Yet the Tories and Reform UK are still celebrating. Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel said today’s anniversary marked five years since her party “honoured the democratic will of the British people and got Brexit done”. She said: “Since then, our country has reaped the benefits – securing new trade deals with dynamic, fast-growing markets across the world and reclaiming sovereignty from Brussels.”
Nigel Farage, one of Brexit’s top cheerleaders, told his GB News show on Thursday: “I still 100% believe it was the right thing to do.” This is despite the Reform UK leader also admitting he was “disappointed in the way it’s been delivered” – it’s a well-loved tactic of Mr Farage to lay blame elsewhere.
Meanwhile Lib Dem Leader Sir Ed Davey used the fifth anniversary of Brexit to criticise the Conservative deal as “an utter disaster for our country”. Since coming to power, Labour has sought a “reset” in relations with the EU, but has consistently ruled out a return to either the customs union or the single market.
Here’s some of the ways Brexit has made life worse for Brits.
1. Airport and port queues
Since Brexit, British holidaymakers travelling to EU destinations have faced new passport rules including having to have their passport stamped at both their entry and exit of the country. There has been widespread confusion for travellers including knowing which airport lane to queue in at passport controls with many Brits often stopped stopped from using automatic passport gates. This has caused lengthy delays at airports.
Things are only set to get more complicated in 2025 as the EU is planning to bring in new rules requiring UK travellers to register for permission to visit the EU – and at a price. From spring this year, the new European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) scheme will require short-term visitors to apply online for authorisation to enter – people will need to pay a €7 fee – roughly £5.80 – and then wait up to 96 hours for their applications to be approved.
The EU is also planning to bring in a separate Entry/Exit System (EES) which will use face and fingerprints scans instead of passports to identify people from outside the EU. MPs were told last week that tourists could face waits of up to 14 hours at border controls. Parliament’s European scrutiny committee heard the Port of Dover and the surrounding area could face significant travel chaos and delays due to the scheme and huge traffic jams at Eurotunnel in Folkestone.
More on travel woes for Brits wanting to visit the EU below…
2. Spiralling food prices
Food prices have spiralled as a cost of Brexit – costing UK households up to hundreds of pounds extra. Food products that rely on imports from the EU, such as meat and cheese, have been particularly exposed to changes to trading barriers.
One study by the London School of Economics found that between December 2019 and March 2023 food prices rose by almost 25 percentage points – eight percentage points more than if Brexit hadn’t happened. The research estimated that British families had been hit by £250 in extra food costs over that period.
In spring 2024, more checks were brought in under the UK’s Brexit trade agreement – with meat, dairy products, plants and seeds among good subject to physical checks when imported to Britain from the EU. Businesses at the time warned they could face up to 60% higher costs to bring food in which would lead to price rises being passed on to customers in some cases.
3. Small businesses forced to shut down
Brexit has undoubtedly made it much more difficult for small British businesses to trade with the EU. Many firms have reported increased costs, rules, paperwork, delays and disruption since Britain left the EU, according to the Federation of Small Businesses.
The FSB says smaller businesses don’t have the resources to meet increasing costs of exporting or navigating the “minefields” of customs and tariffs. YouGov’s latest poll found the public are well aware of Brexit’s impact on the business industry, with 64% thinking leaving the EU has been bad for British firms.
On Thursday a retired businesswoman in Harrow East told the Mirror Brexit had “killed” her business. She previously exported life-saving drugs but said was forced to shut up shop after being suddenly confronted with endless hoops to jump through to export her goods to the EU.
In grim research published in December, LSE found around 14% firms – around 16,400 businesses – that had previously exported to the EU stopped doing so after the Trade and Cooperation Agreement came into force in January 2021. “Most of the firms whose exporting business suffered were smaller ones,” researchers said.
4. Harder to work or study in EU
Before Brexit, Brits had the right to visit, live, work or study in an EU Member State without needing a visa. They (and their family members) were able to claim a right to reside in the host Member State as a jobseeker, worker, student, self-employed or self-sufficient person or a family member, under the terms set by EU free movement laws.
But British citizens’ EU citizenship and free movement rights ended when the Brexit transition period expired on 31 December 2020. Currently Brits don’t need to apply for a visa to visit the EU but are only allowed to stay within the Schengen area – the EU countries plus a few more such as Norway and Switzerland – of up to 90 days in any 180-day period.
And as mentioned above, this is all going to get more complicated with new EU entry systems due to come in later this year.
5. Artists hit by wave of barriers
The above restrictions on working in the EU have had a big impact on the creative industry. Musicians who used to have the freedoms to play at gigs, festivals and on tours in the EU were suddenly hit by a wave of barriers after Brexit. Likewise theatre groups on tour or film crews shooting on location faced hurdles in being able to work in the EU.
Research by campaign group Best for Britain previously found that on average, the number of British musicians scheduled to take to stages across Europe in summer 2023 had fallen by 32% compared to 2017-19. And the situation is also rubbish for Brits wanting to see their favourite artists at home, with the number of European musicians scheduled to perform at major festivals across the UK in 2023 summer having fallen by 40% compared to 2017-19.
According to the UK in a Changing Europe think tank, many EU member states have imposed exceptions to allow some form of visa and work permit-free routes, which vary from one performance to 90 days of work. But the research group warned artists challenges are “multifaceted” and that there is no “silver bullet”.
For instance the movement of performance equipment and merchandise is an issue plaguing the creative industry. Trade restrictions mean artists are hit with extra costs and complications because goods must require export declarations and customs paperwork, UK in a Changing Europe said. This can be especially troublesome for orchestras, where expensive instruments can require extra certification or to go through special border control posts.
Labour’s manifesto promised to improve the UK’s “trade and investment relations with the EU” and specifically referred to the need to “help our touring artists”.
6. Jobs chaos in NHS
Many workers across Britain have seen their jobs become more stressful since Brexit, as vacancies and job shortages have spiralled. And the crisis-hit NHS has been among services to struggle.
The Vote Leave campaign infamously shouted from the rooftops that “we send the EU £350million a week – let’s fund our NHS instead”. But the NHS has far from benefitted from Brexit – in fact, the NHS is in such a poor state that it has been branded “broken” by none other than the Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
Health think tank the Nuffield Trust has warned the impact of Brexit has “only added fuel to the fire of severe challenges facing health and social care in the UK”. Its research published in 2022 found the number of dentists joining the UK register has halved since the EU referendum vote, while there was also a slowdown in recruitment of care workers.
Nadra Ahmed, the chair of the National Care Association, which represents small and medium-sized care providers, told the Guardian in 2022 that Brexit has “made an already declining situation, much, much worse. We’ve lost a lot of our European colleagues. They decided they no longer wanted to stay. They felt unwanted, unsafe, undervalued”.
