_shutterstock_john_gomez__xlarge.jpg "Brexit 10 years on: commemoration or commiseration?")
(c) Shutterstock John Gomez
Brexit 10 years on: commemoration or commiseration?
Ten years have now passed since a deeply divided United Kingdom voted – by an extremely narrow margin – to leave the European Union.
At the time, the ‘Leave camp’ promised greater sovereignty, faster economic growth and tighter control over immigration. In this episode, our colleagues around the bloc look at whether the UK has achieved its Brexit objectives; at how Brexit has reshaped the UK’s economy, society and relations with Europe; and at the lessons the rest of Europe might draw from it.
Taking it personally
From a personal perspective, as a British person who had been living in Belgium for almost 10 years at the time of the vote, the referendum result was devastating. Born in the late 1970s, I had grown up with multiple layers of identity that I had never had cause to question: I was English, I was British, I was European... Then all of a sudden, one whole layer of my identity was ripped away overnight. Literally overnight. I entered a protracted period of grief – I don’t use that word lightly – and my relationship with my ‘motherland’ has never been quite the same again.
Watching Brexit unfold from across the Channel has been painful. The revolving door of prime ministers, the increasingly extreme rhetoric, the divisions within families – including my own. And on a purely practical level, it has impacted my life in many ways: cutting me off from my parents during COVID, prompting me to take on a new nationality (for which I am extremely grateful), and preventing friends, family and indeed businesses from sending me parcels from the UK anymore owing to heavy customs charges and formalities...
Piotr Cieplak experienced Brexit from the other side. The filmmaker, academic and writer moved to the UK from Poland as a teenager, and he has been living there for more than 25 years now. He gives our colleagues at The Europeans some insight into how even extremely integrated migrants were affected in the UK.
Piotr Cieplak, Long-Term UK Resident (in English):
“I've never experienced any kind of direct racism or xenophobia. And I'm pretty sure that's because of my – I don't know – accent, education, general bolshiness… […] There's just a kind of bewilderment to my being here. And over the years, I've learned to very graciously accept compliments about the quality of my English when a person I'm speaking to learns my name. And that's fine. But some things shifted, I think, around referendum time – not so much in the immediate aftermath, but in the campaign. Because obviously, immigration and an anti-European-migrant rhetoric ramped up so much. And some of it was really interesting, because it took the form of small things, and actually quite well-meaning things, but often tone deaf. So, all of a sudden, these remarks about how welcome I was, […] or getting a lot of praise for my work ethic.”
https://www.europeanspodcast.com/all-episodes/ten-years-on-can-we-talk-about-the-b-word
It is, of course, common knowledge that huge numbers of Europeans chose to leave the UK at that point, often saying that they didn’t recognise it anymore.
Taking back control
Dalia Asanavičiūtė-Gružauskienė was formerly chair of the Lithuanian Community in the UK and is now an MP. She tells Žinių Radijas that many of the Britons who voted for Brexit did not fully understand the implications of leaving the bloc. And that one of the key pledges of the Leave campaign has not lived up to its promise.
Dalia Asanavičiūtė-Gružauskienė, Member of the Lithuanian Parliament (in Lithuanian):
“The morning after, once the referendum results had been announced, the top Google search was ‘What is the European Union?’. It seemed that many Britons who had voted in the Brexit referendum hadn’t fully understood what they were leaving behind; what they had just given up. I personally encountered a rather strange belief that, after the referendum, the number of NON-Europeans would decline in the UK – so, not EU citizens but citizens of third countries. But the opposite happened: the number of Europeans is falling. […] Meanwhile, the UK’s migration problems are enormous.”
To back up this assertion, Linda Givetash of our very own fact-checking team cites research confirming a link between Brexit and rising migration.
Linda Givetash, Euranet Plus Fact-Checker (in English):
“An EU parliamentary briefing in June 2025 found that Brexit led to an increase of migration to Britain – the opposite of the desired effect.”
And were there any other unintended consequences of the Leave vote?
Linda Givetash, Euranet Plus Fact-Checker (in English):
“An analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Brexit had reduced the UK’s Gross Domestic Product by as much as eight per cent in 2025, while employment was down by four per cent and investment was down by as much as 18 per cent.”
Oh yes, the economy.
British writer and correspondent William Chislett has lived in Spain for the last 40 years. He is a senior research fellow at the Madrid think tank the Elcano Royal Institute for International and Strategic Studies, not to mention one of Spain’s leading experts on UK-EU relations. He gives esRadio a concrete example.
William Chislett, Senior Research Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute (in Spanish):
“Some 16,000 small businesses have stopped exporting to the European Union. There's a free trade agreement after Brexit. So, the problem is not a lack of a free trade agreement. The problem is that […] there's much more paperwork and so on. And the smallest businesses are fed up with all this paperwork.”
On the plus side, Lithuanian member Asanavičiūtė-Gružauskienė adds that the UK’s protracted and difficult withdrawal from the EU, along with the visible losses that followed, has provided a cautionary tale.
Dalia Asanavičiūtė-Gružauskienė, Member of the Lithuanian Parliament (in Lithuanian):
“It is clear to everyone that, in the case of Britain, Brexit and withdrawal from the European Union led to a lengthy and complex withdrawal process. To this day, certain issues remain unresolved. […] From time to time, calls [from other countries] to leave the EU grow louder. Nevertheless, I would say that the EU’s central institutions are no longer as fearful of such rhetoric, with this concrete example to point to.”
Resetting relations
Under the now-departing Labour prime minister Keir Starmer, the UK has moved significantly closer to Europe again. Kuku Raadio asks MEP Sven Mikser, a member of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament and former Estonian foreign minister, whether we will see this trend continue if Andy Burnham, for example, takes the reins in Westminster.
Sven Mikser, Member of the European Parliament – S&D, Estonia (in Estonian):
"I believe we will see a continuation of this trend. Because all the beautiful things that were promised through [the UK’s] restored sovereignty and departure [from the EU] – all those independently concluded favourable trade agreements and large investments in the social sphere and healthcare – well, these have not actually materialised. And the UK’s overall influence on the world stage has declined since leaving the EU.”
Mikser adds that, according to opinion polls, a significant portion of the British public believe that Brexit was a mistake, with many even willing to consider a return to the bloc. Indeed, a survey by YouGov in February this year found that 55 per cent of Britons would support rejoining the EU.
There is also a changing demographic to take into account, he notes.
Sven Mikser, Member of the European Parliament – S&D, Estonia (in Estonian):
“At the time of the referendum, 10 years ago, there was a clear generational divide. Older voters were more pro-Brexit, perhaps in the grip of nostalgia for the British Empire. As a rule, younger voters were in favour of staying in the EU. Time itself has further reinforced this trend."
https://kuku.pleier.ee/uudised/kumme-aastat-brexiti-otsusest-kas-britid-tahaksid-tagasi-eli
Renascença mentions these same opinion polls to João Vale de Almeida, who was the EU’s first ambassador to the UK in the immediate aftermath of Brexit. He considers it unlikely that the UK will ‘Breturn’ in the foreseeable future, for several reasons.
João Vale de Almeida, Former EU Ambassador to the UK (in Portuguese):
“The first is that the polls you refer to – which do indeed exist – coexist with another poll suggesting that if the British public were called upon to vote in a general election, they would choose the party led by one of the leading advocates of Brexit, Nigel Farage. [...] There is still an aspect here relating to political stability and the stability of British public opinion, which has not yet been consolidated. And secondly, we need to see what the EU thinks about [such a return]. It seems to me that we are still in the heat of the moment. The divorce was traumatic and it would be difficult for the couple to get back together so soon. And there are a number of issues that would arise. Namely, the conditions the UK would be seeking versus those the EU could accept.”
On this note, William Chislett highlights one of the major stumbling blocks in Labour’s drive to forge a more positive working relationship with the rest of Europe.
William Chislett, Senior Research Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute (in Spanish):
“The Labour government is in favour of what they call a ‘reset’. […] But the big problem is that the Labour government has set a number of red lines. More than anything, the major red line is that they don't want to accept the free movement of people again, but this is one of the fundamental pillars of the European Union.”
So, where should our focus lie? Renascença puts this question to João Vale de Almeida.
João Vale de Almeida, Former EU Ambassador to the UK (in Portuguese):
“I think the key thing now is to strengthen the good relationship we have with this Labour government, regardless of who the prime minister is, to lay the foundations for a closer relationship, to make life easier for our citizens and our businesses. [...] For example, European students’ favourable access to British universities. Cooperation will be revived in various fields, but security and defence will certainly be priority areas.”
A new precedent
As Britain vies to reset its relationship with the European Union, the legacy of Brexit continues to be felt ten years on in more indirect ways, too.
Here we return to fact-checker Linda Givetash, who reminds us that the influence of bots on social media, foreign voter manipulation and targeted digital advertising were virtually unheard of back in 2016, and yet massively influenced the outcome of the Brexit referendum.
Linda Givetash, Euranet Plus Fact-Checker (in English):
“The Brexit case demonstrated that targeted misinformation has the potential to manipulate political processes and undermine institutional functioning, even in the most developed democracies. Studies found that Twitter bots had boosted political messaging during the campaign, particularly in favour of the Leave camp, only to disappear right after the polls closed. Other studies have shown that Russia was behind many of these accounts. Brexit was among a string of scandals regarding foreign interference and voter manipulation globally that experts now broadly see as a wake-up call for Europe in tackling misinformation and viewing it as a security issue. It contributed to the political momentum behind digital governance initiatives such as the Digital Services Act and the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation.”
https://euranetplus-inside.eu/brexits-legacy-10-years-on/
Pretty much ever since the momentous Brexit vote, we have been embroiled in a war on disinformation and political sabotage – and this war is likely to go on long into the future.