Third of French and Italians think UK already left EU
Nearly a third of people in some European countries think Brexit has already happened and that Britain has left the EU, according to polling from across the continent. A survey by Populus found that 28 per cent of both French and Italian people believe the UK has already left the bloc.
Meanwhile, 12 per cent of Germans also believe Britain departed some time ago, and two per cent of British people themselves make the same mistake. The study, commissioned by the broadcaster Euronews, underlines the lack of attention being paid across the continent to the Brexit process – despite UK pretensions to being the centre of attention.
Theresa May has made a habit of arriving at meetings of EU leaders supposedly dedicated to other matters, and demanding to discuss Brexit with them. Discussions about Brexit at regular European Council
meetings have also tended to be relegated to the end of proceedings, with other EU countries’ leaders seeing the issue as a drag.
The prime minister is said to be considering whether to attend a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh scheduled for next week – which is ostensibly about EU-UK relations but which she may yet again convert to another Brexit discussion. The UK is in fact set to leave the EU on 29 March 2019 – though the departure could be delayed or called off at the last minute.
Most respondents to the survey believed that Brexit will do more harm than good, especially when thinking about its effect on the UK – 59 per cent of people in Germany think it will be harmful for Britain, 41 per cent in France, and 38 per cent in Italy. Just 34 per cent of people in the UK believe the same thing.
Populus polled nationally representative samples of at least 1000 adults in each of the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Quotas were set and post-weighting applied to make each national sample representative of that country’s adult population by age, gender and region. Surveys were conducted online between 13 and 21 December 2018