Britain officially ‘rejoined’ the Horizon science programme on New Year’s Day, marking what campaigners have described as the “first step” towards rejoining the European Union in its entirety.
Taking to social media, the science secretary Michelle Donelan announced that alongside the EU and global partners, UK scientists, researchers and businesses can “lead the way in scientific innovation”, creating “new jobs and boosting the economy”.
But her post was quickly ratioed by pro-EU campaigners, who pointed out that Britain was already a member of the scheme during its time in the EU and that this marks the first step towards rejoining in full in the near future.
New polling conducted by Omnium for The Observer shows that more than half of the British public think that Brexit has been bad for the British economy, with only a little over 10 per cent believing that is not the case.
The starkness of the public’s awareness of what a disaster Brexit has been for the UK is shown in the number of areas where more of those polled believed that Brexit has had a negative effect than a positive one include the ability of UK companies to import or export goods; on salaries and wages; on the environment; prices in the shops and most damningly on the UK and the UK economy as a whole.
Just 22 per cent of voters believe that Brexit has been good for the UK in general, with only one person in 10 believing that Brexit has been good for their own personal financial situation.
Most significantly for the coming year is that the election looks likely to be dominated by concerns about cost of living, housing, the NHS and immigration. On these issues more voters also think that Brexit has had a negative effect with over 50 per cent believing that Brexit has hampered the ability of the UK to deal with immigration. That just under 50 per cent believe that Brexit has been good for the NHS as against fewer than one in 10 believing it has been bad for the NHS is particularly ironic given the brazen claim during the referendum that Brexit would deliver £350 million a week of extra funding for the NHS.
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