One in four people in Kent who voted for Brexit in 2016 would now back Remain if the referendum was held again, an exclusive poll by KentOnline and KMTV suggests.
Over the past two months, our journalists have travelled the length and breadth of the county, speaking to more than 1,300 people in town centres, high streets and communities.
KentOnline and KMTV polled 1,350 people across all 13 districts in Kent to mark the 10th anniversary of Brexit
Now, on the 10th anniversary of the historic vote, which saw Leave secure 59.2% of the ballot in Kent, our poll points to a significant shift in public opinion.
Of the 1,350 people questioned, 57.1% said they would vote Remain if another referendum was held, compared with 30.6% who would back Leave. A further 12.3% said they were unsure or would not vote.
However, the most striking finding came from those who supported Brexit a decade ago.
Among people who voted Leave in 2016, just 68.2% said they would make the same choice again, with 26% saying they would now vote Remain.
By contrast, support among former Remain voters has remained remarkably solid, with 93.4% saying they would vote the same way again and just 4.6% switching to Leave.
Our poll suggests Kent would vote to stay in the EU if another referendum took place
Professor Richard Whitman, professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent, says the findings suggest attitudes have shifted markedly over the past decade.
“The public mind has altered quite significantly from where we were,” he said.
“I think it’s quite a significant switch, particularly if you think that Leave voters tended to be very motivated, they tended to be very concerned to see quite a significant change of direction.
“It’s always very difficult to do a U-turn on your own beliefs, isn’t it?
“I think it is significant that people will have done that degree of a reversal.”
However, he added that “perhaps it’s also significant that three quarters of people haven’t changed their mind”.
Professor Richard Whitman is professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent
Young people and women most likely to back Remain
Our findings broadly mirror national polling, which has shown support for rejoining the EU steadily increasing since Britain formally left the bloc in 2020.
We polled at least 100 people in every district and borough across Kent and Medway.
Respondents ranged in age from 16 to 95, while women accounted for 50.8% of those who disclosed their gender and men 49.2%.
Almost seven in 10 people aged between 16 and 34 said they would vote Remain, with just 10.8% supporting Leave.
Support for staying in the EU declined with age. Among those aged 35 to 54, Remain led by 61% to 24.7%, while the gap narrowed among 55 to 74-year-olds, where 55.2% backed Remain and 34.9% Leave.
Younger people in Kent are more likely to vote Remain, while those over 75 narrowly favour Leave
Those aged 75 and over were the only group where Leave supporters outnumbered Remainers, albeit narrowly, by 49.1% to 44.1%.
Women were also slightly more likely to favour the EU than men.
Among women surveyed, 59.9% said they would vote Remain compared with 54.1% of men.
Yet both sexes showed signs of Brexit regret.
Among women who voted Leave in 2016, 27.9% said they would now switch to Remain. The figure among men was 25.5%.
Borough by borough
The extent of the shift varied considerably across the county, with support for Brexit proving much more resilient in some areas than others.
The biggest change came in Tonbridge and Malling, where our team visited Tonbridge, Snodland, Aylesford and West Malling.
How each district in Kent would vote based on our poll if another EU referendum was held today
Almost half of those who backed Brexit in 2016 said they would now vote Remain.
There was also a huge shift in Medway, where close to four in 10 Brexit voters would now vote to stay in the EU, while Sevenoaks recorded more than a third of former Leave supporters switching sides.
Professor Whitman says the result in Tonbridge and Malling does not surprise him.
“You’ve got to think about the demographic in particular,” he said.
“If we look at commuter towns, I think it’s useful to look there at what the data tells us about those who are perhaps heavily involved in London’s economy, and the degree to which they see that benefit or not from Brexit.
“Tonbridge and Malling is a very prosperous area of our county in comparison to other bits of the county.”
Ruth Hitchcock, from Gravesend, is among those who voted Leave in 2016 but would now vote Remain
Tunbridge Wells, the only district in Kent to vote Remain in the 2016 referendum, continued to stand apart.
After speaking to residents in Tunbridge Wells, Southborough, Paddock Wood and Cranbrook, our survey found more than 70% of those polled would vote to remain in the EU – the highest figure anywhere in the county.
Canterbury, where Leave won by just two percentage points in 2016, also recorded one of the strongest levels of support for Remain, with 62.8% of respondents backing the EU.
Yet while opinion had shifted in the district, which includes Herne Bay and Whitstable, support among former Brexit voters remained comparatively resilient. Some 75.7% said they would still vote Leave today, a figure exceeded only by Dartford, where 78.4% of Leave voters remained committed to Brexit.
Even in Gravesham, which delivered Kent’s strongest Leave vote in 2016, with 65.4% backing Brexit, support for the move appeared to have softened, with almost one in four saying they would now switch sides.
‘I would say no now’
Among those whose mind had changed was Ruth Hitchcock, 59, from Gravesend, who voted Leave 10 years ago but said she would now choose Remain.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” she said.
Almost half of Brexit supporters we polled in Tonbridge and Malling said they would now vote Remain
“In a way, I wanted to say no because I wanted to go to Europe a bit more. But then I decided it was best to just get out of it so we wouldn’t have so much of the European Union telling us what to do.
“I would say no now because we go to Europe quite a bit and the way they’ve done the passports is much more awkward.
“It happened to my son last year when he was going to Spain – they had to be at the airport earlier.”
Not everyone who backed Brexit has changed their minds.
John Strong, 71, from Gravesend, remained firmly convinced leaving the EU was the right decision.
“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t want anything to do with Europe,” he said.
“They’re just money-pinching bureaucrats.”
John Strong, from Gravesend, believes those at the EU are ‘money-pinching bureaucrats’
Fellow Gravesend resident Stanley Mahony, 73, also still supported Brexit, despite acknowledging some of its promises had not materialised.
“We need to start being self-sufficient in this country,” he said.
“Whatever government is in need to start investing in industry in this country and not bring everything in from abroad.”
Asked whether promises of greater economic control had been realised, he replied: “No, we were hoodwinked.
“I think they’re living in cloud cuckoo. They’ve seen what’s happened to this country over the last 10 years.
“We’re not self-sufficient, we buy everything from abroad.”
Brexit Supporter Stanley Mahoney, from Gravesend, wouldn’t change his vote
Yet despite his continued support for Brexit, he struggled to identify any benefits.
“None whatsoever,” he said.
Professor Whitman suggested many people may now view Brexit through the prism of wider frustrations.
“I think this is just a very nice way on a single question of really asking people, in effect, do you feel better or worse off than you were 10 years ago?” he said.
Deep divisions remain
In Swale, where our reporters visited Sittingbourne, Faversham and Sheerness, opinion remained deeply divided.
Charlie Wells, 31, from Sheerness, who voted Remain in 2016, said the intervening decade had only strengthened his view.
“At the time it was a no-brainer,” he said.
Charlie Wells, 31, from Sheerness, voted Remain in 2016, and says Brexit was a ‘terrible idea’
“For me Brexit was a terrible idea, a terrible risk, and we’re now reaping the rewards of it.
“The prices of everything have gone up astronomically because we can’t trade with our partners in the EU.
“On top of that, one of the biggest policies was immigration – nothing’s changed.”
Meanwhile, Karen and Charlie Colin, both 67 and Leave voters, said they still supported Brexit, although they believed governments had failed to deliver on many of the promises made during the campaign.
“We weren’t getting any say in [the EU], we had no authority there,” said Charlie.
“I don’t think we made the best of leaving so I’m still waiting to see what will happen.
Karen and Charlie Colin, from Sheerness, both voted Leave and still support Leave
“We haven’t got any more trade with countries around the world as they said we would.
“I think the worst thing was when the Tories got out. If they had stuck together we might have got the best benefits out of it.”
In Maidstone, where our polling took place in the county town as well as Bearsted, Lenham and Headcorn, views ranged from unwavering support to deep disappointment.
Noel Ensoll, 66, who voted Leave, said Brexit had achieved what he had hoped it would.
“It’s doing what I wanted it to do, which was to put the power back into the hands of our own politicians,” he said.
“How incompetent they’ve shown themselves to be is another matter.”
Noel Ensoll, from Maidstone, believes Brexit has ‘put the power back into the hands of our own politicians’
But Jay Graves, 74, who also voted Leave, said she had become disillusioned.
“I think we wanted change – we thought it would be better for the country,” she said.
“With what’s happened, all the promises have been broken.
“I feel sorry for the youngsters, there’s gonna be no future for them.
“And with the cost of living and everything else with Brexit it’s made us suffer, so in a way maybe we should have stayed in.”
Jay Graves, 74, from Maidstone, voted for Brexit but is now unsure
Could the debate return?
Overall, no district or borough in Kent recorded majority support for Leave among those we spoke to.
Professor Whitman said the issue was unlikely to disappear from British politics.
“The Brexit vote has cast a very, very long shadow,” he said.
“It has had this long-term impact on the way voters identify themselves and the direction that they want British politics to go.”
Although outgoing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out rejoining the EU, the customs union and the single market, speculation over who may eventually succeed him has fuelled debate over Britain’s future relationship with Europe.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who has been tipped as the next Labour leader, has advocated closer ties with the bloc, though not full membership.
Outgoing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out rejoining the EU, but will his successor have different ideas?
Professor Whitman cautioned that rejoining the EU would be far from straightforward.
“The European Union has changed,” he said.
“And the terms of membership that the UK would face are most likely to be different.”
He noted that future applicants would be expected to adopt the euro and join the Schengen free movement area.
“And remember, in all of this, the European Union has to accept the UK as a candidate state, and to negotiate terms for the UK joining,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be straightforward.”
International relations professor Dr Philip Cunliffe is not surprised by the poll’s results
Former University of Kent politics lecturer Philip Cunliffe, author of Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democracy After Brexit, does not expect a re-run of the referendum.
“The polling data is no surprise, given that in the 10 years since the Brexit vote, we have had no government willing or able to face the demands of political independence – or even just police the border,” said Dr Cunliffe, who is now a professor of international relations at University College London.
“This is despite the public having given them the mandate to do so in 2016. Still, we shouldn’t read too much into these results.
“After all, whatever choices this country makes in future, we will not have a re-run of the choice that was offered in 2016.
“The EU today is a very different beast from what it was in 2016. If we think in terms of our national interest, the case for rejoining today is weaker than ever.”
