A new government and a chance to reset.
Flickr/Number 10, CC BY-NC-ND
For leavers, the idea that Brexit was a mistake triggers discomfort. They are in what behavioural scientists call a state of cognitive dissonance. When we cannot change a past action, we often decide to change how we see and interpret new evidence about that action in order to avoid the cognitive inconsistency and the psychological discomfort of being wrong about it.
This is natural and human, it happens to all of us. Together with my colleague Sara Hobolt, I have shown how since the 2016 vote, both remainers and leavers have chosen to retain and believe different aspects of official information on the state of the UK economy to suit their own view on Brexit.
For leavers, this means joining the 47% who think that Brexit is not done, or the nearly 30% who think it could have been a success if the UK had better politicians and negotiators.
These numbers are not negligible: any call for rejoining the EU is, at this point in time, unwise and likely to be seen as extremely radical.
The big reset
To overcome this state of “bresignation” and truly trigger a reset in UK-EU relations, the UK government first needs to gather information on how the current arrangement – the Trade and Cooperation Agreement – is going, and to communicate this evidence in a unifying way.
Some evidence shows that factual information about Brexit effects (e.g. economic repercussions, repercussion on young UK citizens of the end of freedom of movement), or lack thereof (for example, illegal immigration issue not being “solved” by Brexit), are getting across to the UK public.
Commissioning more research on how minimal access to the EU market is affecting the UK economy – and disseminating this evidence in a way that does not point the finger at leave voters – is an essential step. They need to be protected from feeling primarily responsible to be shielded from the state of cognitive dissonance.
Given that it was the responsibility of the Leave and Remain campaigns to clearly spell out the meaning of Brexit, freeing leave voters from blame is also simply the right thing to do.
Public opinion is still very much in favour of retaining control over UK regulations and trade deals, making joining the customs union and single market particularly unpalatable. But there is significant support for a closer relationship with the EU and for the removal of most – if not all – trade barriers on goods and services.
There is, therefore, scope to sell regulatory alignment by focusing on its flexible, conditional nature and on the perks of easing trade with the world’s largest trading block.
People are also less fussed about conditional freedom of movement than the government thinks. They favour flexible immigration quotas to dynamically deal with sectoral shortages, such as in the NHS, or for high-skilled talent.
A reset is in the realms of possibility, therefore. But the UK government first needs to break us free from the state of bresignation.
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Publish date : 2024-11-19 09:18:00
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