Ten years after the Brexit vote, regret and political crisis grip the UK as the EU keeps its distance

A decade of regret

Ten years after 52% of British voters chose to leave the European Union, the mood in Leave-voting strongholds has soured. In Havering, the London borough that backed Brexit by 70%, market stallholder Karen Gibbs says nothing improved. "Nothing has improved. It has affected small businesses. And everything costs more money," she told RFI. She now pins her hopes on Nigel Farage becoming prime minister. Fellow Havering resident Keith Martin, a museum volunteer, said he would vote differently today: "Ten years later I think it would have been better to stay because the world has changed completely."

Nothing has improved. It has affected small businesses. And everything costs more money.

Farmer Robert Law in Hertfordshire, who voted Leave because he felt abandoned by distant bureaucrats, now says there is "no choice but to move forward." Agricultural exports to the EU had fallen almost 40% by February 2026, La Vanguardia reports. Resentment, defiance, and regret are the emotions that surface in interviews with Leave voters from farming, fishing, market trading, and other key sectors.

Political turmoil

Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigned on Monday, succumbing to internal Labour Party pressures and capping a decade in which the UK has cycled through seven prime ministers. The anti-system vote that propelled the Leave campaign has continued to weaken the executive, Europa Press notes. Labour's Andy Burnham, a potential successor, has called Brexit a mistake and expressed a desire for the UK to rejoin the EU one day, though without committing to a candidacy or a timetable.

The referendum has not managed to solve any of the problems attributed to the EU: economic insecurity, unequal globalization, declining trust in political elites, and the perception that democratic decision-making has moved further away from citizens.

Economic scars

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, UK GDP has fallen between 6% and 8% since the referendum, well above the 4% that the most pessimistic forecasts predicted. Spanish fruit and vegetable exports to the UK have dropped 16.6% by volume between 2016 and 2025, from 1.55 million tonnes to 1.29 million, though their value rose 29.5% to €2.27 billion due to higher costs. Tomato shipments from Spain collapsed from 137,967 tonnes in 2016 to 57,458 tonnes in 2025, while Moroccan sales to the UK surged.

Pablo Mora of the Anecoop cooperative told RTVE that the biggest impact has been "the operational complexity at the logistical level and the increase in administrative costs." Perishable goods like citrus, tomatoes, peppers, and berries are the most sensitive. From January 2027, phytosanitary certificates will become mandatory, adding another layer of bureaucracy.

The lies that won it

The Leave campaign's central promise, emblazoned on a red bus, was that the UK sent £350 million a week to the EU and that this money could fund the NHS instead. RTVE's fact-checking unit VerificaRTVE shows the real net contribution in 2015 was around £173 million per week. The bus slogan was devised by Dominic Cummings, who later became Boris Johnson's chief adviser. Another falsehood warned of Turkey's imminent EU accession, playing on anti-immigration fears; Turkey remains a candidate country in 2026.

The decision taken in 1975 by this country to join the Common Market has been overturned by this referendum. The British people have spoken and the answer is: we're leaving.

EU's cold shoulder

Despite growing British regret, the EU is in no hurry to reopen the door. AFP spoke to half a dozen European diplomats; all said their countries would welcome a UK return only if the British were willing to accept the obligations of membership, something many doubt. "They are not willing to accept the obligations that come with belonging to the EU," one diplomat said. Another noted that "it's easier" since London left, because the bloc no longer has to negotiate opt-outs on every file. Sébastien Maillard of Chatham House points out that with the UK gone, the EU's economically liberal, US-aligned countries lost a counterweight.

For ordinary people, the bureaucratic burden is tangible. Poppy May Ward, a 20-year-old student at Newcastle University, spent almost €1,000 and five months obtaining a visa for an internship in Madrid. "I had to get several documents before applying for the visa and they all had to be translated and apostilled. That alone cost me 500 pounds," she told El País.