RT-Engels: 23-06-2026,
The UK wants back into the EU, but not on the EU’s terms
Ten years ago, I was on a business trip in Brussels on the day of the Brexit referendum. Voting was already underway across the Channel, but in the European Quarter, the mood was almost serene. Journalists kept asking EU officials about Brexit, and the officials waved the questions away with jokes, as though the whole thing was a theatrical inconvenience rather than a potential political earthquake.
In private conversations, I asked people the same question: if you had to place a bet, what would you choose? Everyone said ‘Remain’. In Britain itself, almost 13 million voters didn’t turn out at all, apparently unable to imagine the scale of what was coming.
We were all naive. Trump hadn’t yet been elected in the United States, the Covid disaster hadn’t yet rolled across the world, and the year 2022 hadn’t arrived yet. On the morning of June 24, 2016, the news that 51.9% of British voters had chosen to leave the European Union was read not only online, but on the faces of people in Brussels. Outside cafés and around the offices where EU officials gathered for lunch, people spoke into their phones in a state of disbelief.
Today, around 57% of Britons say Brexit was a mistake, and despite the reverence traditionally attached in Britain to the “will of the people,” politicians are increasingly prepared to discuss whether the decision should one day be revisited.