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Will Britain’s next prime minister reverse Brexit?

From Brexit to Breturn.

It’s been 10 years since Britons voted to leave the European Union, but Brexit has not delivered the economic or political benefits its advocates promised.

A number of prominent British politicians, including two of the most likely candidates to be the next prime minister, have suggested the UK could still return to the EU.

While support for returning to the EU is growing, it’s far from clear that the next British government will want to spend years and substantial political capital on another battle over Brexit.

This was already going to be a week of reflection on the legacy of Brexit. The referendum in which British voters shocked the world by narrowly opting to leave the European Union took place ten years ago this Tuesday. But it’s become more of a live issue with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s announcement that he is stepping down, setting up a contest within the ruling Labour party to succeed him.

Starmer was elected in a landslide just two years ago, but his approval ratings are now more than 50 points underwater. There are a number of reasons for that, including sluggish economic growth, several damaging policy U-turns, and the controversial appointment of Jeffrey Epstein crony Peter Mandelson. But given that Starmer is Britain’s sixth prime minister in the past 10 years, it’s hard to avoid the impression that it’s become nearly impossible for anyone to govern the country successfully in the post-Brexit era. Every prime minister since the referendum has struggled either with figuring out how to implement Brexit or how to cope with the mostly disappointing economic and social results of it.

So, it’s not that surprising to see that many in the country are looking to turn the page on this era. Fifty-five percent of Britons favor returning to full membership in the EU, according to a recent YouGov poll. Perhaps, more notably, a recent European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) poll found that 63 percent favored closer economic relations with the EU, even if it meant accepting the freedom of movement of people between Britain and the continent — notable given how central arguments about border security were to the original case for Brexit and how the backlash to immigration has fueled the rise of the far-right Reform UK party.

While Starmer, though an opponent of Brexit, argued that there was no going back and that the Labour-led government had to make the best of it, Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester, who is........

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