“Clinging to a decision out of pride” was the floor’s most-respected Yes case, yet No won 296 votes to 208. The result was less a clean endorsement of Brexit than a refusal to accept that its perceived failures automatically made rejoining the answer.
No supplied the louder and more numerous side, but it was not a single-minded bloc. One of its strongest voices warned that “the economic punishment the EU would inflict on us would be even worse than our current state outside the EU”, while others argued that “we never properly left” and that governments had failed to deliver the version they had promised.
Yes voters made the economic indictment plainly. Their leading case said “small businesses are drowning in red tape, trade with our closest neighbours is down, and everyday costs are up”; another concluded, more starkly, “We have gained nothing positive since leaving.” The two sides largely talked past each other: Yes treated the damage as evidence against Brexit itself, while No blamed weak governments, bad negotiations and deliberate obstruction.
The wider argument was sovereignty, not just growth. No voices objected to freedom of movement, EU rules and the loss of former opt-outs, while the chamber’s left-wing dissent described the EU as a “union serving the interests of capitalists, not the working people”; even some former Remain voters now saw rejoining as an unacceptable reversal.
The verdict leaves Brexit’s ledger disputed, but the proposed remedy was not: this room voted to live with the separation rather than reopen it.
45 Opinions
It is better for the UK to be poor and economically isolated than it would be for us to participate in and benefit from a major forum for global economic imperialism. The EU serves only the interest of the western bourgeois class and acts contrary to the interests of the working class.
Brexit could fail only if we couldn't leave the EU. The rest is simply consecutive governments be able to use the situation or not. It is obviously clear that they did not want to.
Brexit should have been a success from early on, but successive governments were not committed to it, and never exploited all the available benefits. As usual, the government ignored the will of the people, and decided they knew best. Heads should roll, but nobody ever accepts any responsibly.
I voted for the Common Market 50 years or so ago. I voted to Remain more recently. I voted on the basis that it would help bring people together. I vote No to rejoining now – not as a Brexit-loving UK nationalist – but from a Left exit (Lexit) position. I realise now that the EU is union serving the interests of capitalists, not the working people. And the EU is a racist union, “Fortress Europe”, using its Schengen border to exclude people from Asia and Africa.
Brexit is massively overrate as a source of Britain's problems, our problems are lack of infrastructure due to the planning and judicial review systems, nothing to do with Brexit.
We party voted leave because the EU regulations and enforcement on the UK was getting out of hand. The failure lies within the handling and the speed of the exit we did not have the right agreements in place and folded under pressure in negotiations way too early.
No. The electorate already decided against. Personally, I voted Remain and have since changed my opinion. It's extremely insulting to voters to try and overturn the results of an election.
The EU will not accept new members joining with any opt outs of the EU Treaty. Britain enjoyed opt outs of the Euro and Schengen as an EU member, but we will not have these if we rejoin. Joining the EU means committing to join Schengen and the Euro as these are part of the EU Treaty. Britain will also not have a rebate on the EU budget.
We never voted to join the eu! The eu was great for trading but once they put in freedom of movement and started allowing illegals to walk in that was bad. We would have still been in the eu if they'd have allowed us to remove illegals. The UN, echr & the eu are not compatible with the UK. We want complete control of our Union and we will get it!
The only reason Brexit was a failure, was because the political classes needed to punish the working classes for going against their wishes.