New poll highlights Brexit regrets

More people think Brexit is wrong than right for the first time since the referendum, according to a Times poll which shows the Tory lead ahead of the election has shrunk in the past week.

The YouGov poll found that 45 per cent of voters agreed that, with hindsight, Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU, while 43 per cent said it was right and 12 per cent did not know.

This is the first time that more people have said the referendum came out with the wrong result, and suggests that the issue still divides the country.

Some 85 per cent of people who voted to leave still thought it was the right decision, while 89 per cent of people who voted to remain thought the result was the wrong decision.

The research also showed the Tory lead shrinking from 23 points at the end of last week to 16 points.

It put the Tories on 45 per cent, down three; Labour on 29 per cent, up 4; Lib Dems on 10, down 2; and Ukip on 7, up 2.

This was a smaller lead than a telephone poll by Ipsos Mori which had the Tories on 49 per cent, Labour on 26 per cent, Lib Dems on 13 and Ukip on 4.

That matched the biggest lead recorded for the Conservatives in an election campaign back in 1983.

The YouGov poll found the Tory focus on pitting May and Corbyn head-to-head has not helped the Tory campaign.

Asked who would make the best prime minister, 48 per cent said May, down six, and 28 per cent said Corbyn, up three.

The other Brexit questions were less helpful for Remain supporters.

The Tories were the only party who people thought had been clear on Brexit, with 50 per cent thinking they had been clear and 31 per cent unclear.

People split slightly in favour of a hard Brexit over a soft one by 43 per cent to 36 per cent.

More voters would trust a Conservative government under May than a Labour government under Corbyn to negotiate leaving the EU, by 45 per cent to 16.

May came face-to-face with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, on Wednesday.

She played host to Barnier and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, at a working dinner at Downing Street at 7pm.

Nick Timothy, May’s joint chief of staff, was understood not to have attended despite hopes in Brussels that he might engage more with Brexit.

Elsewhere, David Cameron claimed credit for draining the ‘‘poison’’ from British politics with a Brexit referendum that has made the Tories the strongest party in western Europe.

Although he regretted the ‘‘personal consequences’’ of June 23, 2016, he said that anger at the EU had been ‘‘legitimate’’ and that the vote had helped to defeat populism.

‘‘I loved being prime minister. I thought I was doing a reasonable job,’’ Cameron said at a tourism conference in Bangkok.

‘‘But I think it was the right thing. The lack of a referendum was poisoning British politics and so I put that right.’’

Cameron said that Theresa May had been right to call a snap election, hinting that he believed a new five-year term would enable her to make politically challenging compromises with Brussels.

‘‘If Theresa May is successful, she’ll actually have a larger majority and, potentially, more time to deal with Brexit and its consequences,’’ he said.

Cameron, who repeatedly warned of the disastrous consequences of leaving the EU, including at one point suggesting it would threaten world peace, said that the Tories had been right to embrace Brexit. The party had ‘‘accepted the referendum result and got on with the process of responsibly delivering it’’.

YouGov interviewed 1590 British adults on April 25 and 26.

The Times, London