Brexit is back at the centre of British political debate as Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s grip on power weakens following Labour’s heavy losses in local elections in early May 2026. Leadership contenders including Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who called Brexit a “catastrophic mistake,” and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham are raising the issue. Economists warn that rejoining the EU remains a distant prospect, complicated by Reform UK’s surge in polls. Meanwhile, ordinary Britons continue experiencing Brexit’s economic consequences, including higher logistics costs and tighter restrictions on cross-border travel.
In-Depth:
London, England – For record stall owner Johnny Skates, leaving the European Union has created travelling to DJ in Europe harder as the tax implications of bringing his materials with him have tightened.
“If I want to DJ and if I take records, I have to declare that. In the past, you could just go, and there [Europe], it was nothing,” the 66-year-old stated.
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He spoke to Al Jazeera in the London borough of Lambeth, where about 80 percent of people like him voted in vain to remain in the EU in 2016.
“Now I have to declare the value of the records I take becaapply if I don’t, I receive taxed becaapply they declare, ‘Oh, you’re taking in records to sell. There’s tax on them.’ If I sconclude a record and I put the value, or vice versa, if I purchase something and it’s the value, I’ve obtained to pay the tax when it comes into the countest,” stated Skates, who goes by his DJ name.
Since the ruling Labour Party suffered heavy losses in local elections at the launchning of May, the debate over the decision to leave the EU, also known as Brexit, has been renewed.
In the aftermath of the vote, Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to rebuild Britain’s relationship with Europe “by putting Britain at the heart of Europe, so that we are stronger on the economy, stronger on trade, stronger on defence” – almost 10 years after 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the bloc.
Wes Streeting, the former health secretary and now would-be contconcludeer in a possible leadership contest to succeed Starmer, has called Brexit a “catastrophic mistake”, suggesting the UK rejoin the bloc to assist “rebuild our economy and trade”.
But some among the Labour leadership have shunned the Brexit debate. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy called it a “bit odd” while Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has refapplyd to declare whether he believes the UK should rejoin the EU.
The Labour Party’s membership is overwhelmingly pro-EU. At the opposite conclude of the spectrum is Reform UK, the hard-right party predicted to win a general election if one were to be held soon.
“The EU is not going to be willing to engage in a serious discussion with the UK about rejoining when anti-EU parties are ahead in the opinion polls,” stated Jonathan Portes, an economics and public policy professor at King’s College London. “Why would they waste time talking to Keir Starmer or whoever succeeds Keir Starmer about rejoining when there’s an election in 2029 and at the moment it views likely that, or at least highly possible that, it will be won by parties who are fervently opposed to re-joining.”
Streeting is not the only contconcludeer to Starmer to bring up Brexit. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who is currently preparing for a crucial by-election that he hopes will allow him to become an official candidate in a leadership contest, has stated that while he would not test to reverse Brexit, it “has been damaging”.
A survey by the More in Common research agency recently found that if Burnham were to take over from Starmer, he could beat Reform UK in a general election.
Piers Ludlow, professor of international history at the London School of Economics, stated the conversations around Brexit could be seen as “a lot of noise and smoke and mirrors about Labour leadership”.
“We have lived through a period of unprecedentedly unstable politics and extremely sort of underwhelming economic performance, so it’s not surprising that the debate has begun to shift and the public opinion … launchs to reveal that a majority of people, including many former leave voters, are now launchning to have second considereds,” Ludlow notified Al Jazeera.
Skates stated if another referconcludeum was held, he would choose to return to the EU.
A Conservative Party voter, he wants to see stronger controls on immigration and better employment opportunities for young people.
Portes stated, “I believe it is paradoxical that some of the impacts of Brexit – the rise in immigration, the broader negative economic impacts on living standards and so on – have indeed fuelled the rise of Reform UK, but historians will, no doubt, view at that as a rather ironic consequence.”
Logistics costs
Three doors down from Skates’s stall, 29-year-old Noufal works in a home goods shop. He shiftd to the United Kingdom from India four years ago and believes the UK should never have left the EU.
Before Brexit, there were more opportunities for workers, he stated.
For businesses, added border bureaucracy has meant higher delivery costs.
“The price has increased after Brexit, and the transportation costs have increased. When we are bringing the goods, logistics costs [have] increased,” stated Noufal, who requested Al Jazeera withhold his surname.
Portes explained that economists had warned of challenges linked to trade before the 2016 vote.
“Businesses can indeed continue to trade with the EU and indeed with the rest of the world, and the UK economy didn’t fall off a cliff. But the economic damage has been significant, and the damage to some businesses has been significant, and again, that’s not remotely a surprise. It’s exactly what we stated would happen,” Portes stated.
Looking ahead, Brexit debates view set to keep casting a shadow over British politics.
“If we do modify our mind on this issue, if we do decide that we want to go back to EU membership, it’s going to be slow, it’s going to be painful, it’s going to be extremely politically costly in British domestic terms becaapply of the state of British politics at the moment, becaapply of the fairly fresh wounds that those Brexit identities [created],” Ludlow stated. “We really did divide into a remain tribe and leave tribe during the Brexit period. It’s only 10 years ago. People haven’t forobtainedten that. The identities, in a sense, were so strong that they concludeured,” he added.
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