London: Six and a half years after voting to leave the European Union, three years after the formal departure, two years after signing a post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels and one month after installing its fourth prime minister since the 2016 referendum, Britain is caught in – what else? – another debate over Brexit.

Brexit may be in the history books, but “Bregret”, as the British newspapers have called it, is back in the air.

The British government denied a report on Sunday that it is seeking a “Swiss-style” relationship with the European Union that would remove many of the economic barriers erected by Brexit.Credit:AP

The cause of the remorse is clear: Britain’s economic crisis, which is the gravest in a generation and worse than those of its European neighbours. Not all — or even most — of the problems are because of Brexit, but Britain’s vexed trade relationship with the rest of Europe indisputably plays a role. That makes it a ripe target for an anxious public casting about for something to blame.

The latest eruption of this never-ending drama began last week with an opinion poll that showed support for Brexit had fallen to its lowest level yet. Only 32 per cent of those surveyed in the poll, by the firm YouGov, said that they thought leaving the EU was a good idea; 56 per cent said it was a mistake.

The Brexit second-guessing grew louder this week, after The Sunday Times of London published a report that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was considering pursuing a closer arrangement with the EU, modelled on that of Switzerland. The Swiss have access to the single market and fewer border checks, in return for paying into the bloc’s coffers and accepting some of its rules.

Sunak quickly shot down the report, which was attributed to “senior government sources”.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said his government is not seeking a “Swiss-style” relationship with the EU.Credit:Getty

“Under my leadership,” Sunak told business executives Monday, “the United Kingdom will not pursue any relationship with Europe that relies on alignment with EU laws”.

“I voted for Brexit, I believe in Brexit,” Sunak added. “I know that Brexit can deliver, and is already delivering, enormous benefits and opportunities for the country.”

While nobody is predicting that Britain will seek to rejoin the EU, political analysts said that The Sunday Times report, on top of the dismal economic data and growing popular sentiment against Brexit, would open a fresh chapter in Britain’s search for a new relationship with the rest of Europe. Where that would lead, they cautioned, was impossible to predict.

“A genie’s been let out of the bottle,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. “What’s beginning is a much more fundamental debate. What is the long-run equilibrium between the two sides? Is it Switzerland? Is it Norway?” he added, referring to a country that has even closer ties to the EU than Switzerland, also without being a member.

“You can’t really address the economic problems the UK has without addressing and improving the trade relationship with the EU,” Rahman said. “Otherwise, you’re just fiddling around the edges.”

It is not an accident that public sentiment began to swing against Brexit a year ago, when Britain suffered an acute shortage of truck drivers, which caused delays in deliveries of fuel to petrol stations and long lines of motorists. That ended a honeymoon earlier in the year, when the government claimed, dubiously, that its swift approval and rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine was thanks to Brexit.

Since then, Britain has been gripped by double-digit inflation, rising interest rates and a recession that the Bank of England recently warned could last two years. Among the Group of 7 advanced countries, Britain is the only one with an economy that is smaller now than it was before the pandemic started. It was recently overtaken by India as the world’s fifth-largest economy.

“We can argue about the extent to which Brexit is responsible for Britain’s economic problems,” said John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, and a leading British expert on polling. “But it is very difficult to convince people that a wonderful economic nirvana is coming around the corner because of Brexit.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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