'Huge shift' as Brexit-voting Wales now backs rejoining the EU - with more than two thirds wanting closer ties with the bloc
Around 60 per cent of people in Wales now say the decision to leave the EU was the wrong one
A majority of voters in Wales are now in favour of rejoining the European Union, according to extensive new polling.
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The nation was second only to England in voting to leave the EU on June 23 2016, with 52.5 per cent supporting Brexit - a stark contrast to Scotland and Northern Ireland, which voted to remain.
However, the latest research has revealed that if the referendum were held today, Wales would align more with Scotland.
In a poll of 3,800 people across Wales, around 60 per cent of people now say the decision to leave the EU was the wrong one with just under 70 per cent of people saying they want to rejoin the EU.
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Jac Larner, from the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, who has been tracking changing attitudes to Brexit, said the numbers represent a “huge shift” from where Wales was 10 years ago.
“In 2020, we started to see some attitudes changing quite substantially to the point where in Wales there's quite a comfortable majority for people who want to rejoin the EU.
“So a huge shift from where things were in Wales 10 years ago,” he said.
“There's two things going on there. First is that there are some people who have changed their mind. So roughly 25 per cent, so a quarter, of those who voted Leave in Wales now say that they would like to rejoin.
"And when we ask people, they tend to say the economy is a big reason or also just that Brexit hasn't been done properly, and maybe it can't be. So they've kind of given up on the idea that there is a good way to be outside of the EU.
“But the biggest change is not actually people changing their minds, it's new younger voters coming of age and entering the electorate.
“So these are people who couldn't vote in 2016, but are now able to vote. That's anyone under the age of about 28. And this group is overwhelmingly in favour of rejoining.
“Also support for Leave was highest concentrated among older people and in the last 10 years a fair number of those people have passed away. And so you've got the most Eurosceptic age demographic, the old people, which is reducing over time, and the most pro-European age demographic, young people, coming through into the electorate.
“So that's actually where the big changes are — it's that the electorate as a whole, its makeup has changed over the last decade.”
“Looking at the UK and even just Britain as a whole excluding Northern Ireland, there is now regularly a majority, kind of a slim majority, but a majority in favour of rejoining the EU or at least wanting much, much closer ties."
Ebbw Vale, the largest town in the most pro-leave area of Wales - Blaenau Gwent - had perhaps more EU investment than any other small town in Britain but 62 per cent of its population voted to leave the European Union.
Hundreds of millions of euros from EU structural funds had poured into the town by 2016 building a brand-new college, leisure centre, rail line, by-pass, creating thousands of apprenticeships and seeing improvements to the town centre.
Despite this, it appears money from Brussels had yet to translate into real tangible economic benefit for the people who lived there, the reality on the ground being a decline in the number of jobs and a fall in real terms wages.
Speaking to LBC a decade on, people there said they had wanted change for the better, but that has not been forthcoming.
Neil Jones, who we met in the Ebbw Vale Conservative Club, said: “It was a waste of time because we left the EU but we’re worse off now than we’ve ever been.
“Since 2016 things have gotten a lot worse. We came out of the EU to improve the economy but nothing happened.
“The Heads of the Valleys road was built with EU money, the college here was built with EU money and we left that for nothing.
“People didn’t realise what they were voting for, a lot of people voted to leave because of the immigrants but it’s got nothing to do with immigrants, it’s to do with the town.”
Tina, the owner of a dog grooming company, said: “I wanted to stay and since then the area’s gone downhill.
“There’s nothing around here, the shops have all closed.
“I just feel like since Brexit, little towns like this have been forgotten about, but when we were in the EU at least we had a fair chance.
“I think we should have stayed in the EU.”
Sam, a retiree we met on the high streets, said: “We should never have left, never have left.
“Look at the shops around here and the state of the community. The investment we used to get from Europe is gone now, we’re just a wasted town now.
“I would much prefer us to rejoin and possibly restore the town to what it was rather than what it’s become.”