Brexit three years on: views from Stratford-upon-Avon

In Stratford-upon-Avon, the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum mirrored the national outcome, with 52% of people voting to leave the European Union and 48% opting to remain.

In the years that followed, while politicians wrangled over Brexit, we went back to the medieval market town more than once to see what people there were making of the machinations at Westminster.

Three years on from the UK's official departure from the EU in January 2020, we've returned to Stratford-upon-Avon again to find out how people feel about Brexit now.

On a drizzly January morning, a group of friends are catching up over coffee in a tearoom just a stone's throw from Shakespeare's birthplace in the centre of the historic Warwickshire town.

The three couples met through their mutual interest in caravanning and motorhomes, but until now they've never realised they were on different sides of the debate over Brexit.

In fact, it's first time they've ever talked about it.

Mike and Pat Mills both voted to leave, and both still think it was the right decision.

"The world's changed since we voted," Mike says. "Think of Ukraine and the Covid situation, the world has totally changed, but personally I'd still vote the same. I believe in this country.

"I think it was never going to be a quick fix. A lot of people thought it was instantly going to produce a big change for the country, but it will take time. And you've got to play the long game."

"I think if politicians get their act together now, it will benefit us," Pat adds.

Dawn Repton was also a Brexit-backer, and while she doesn't regret her vote she says she's still waiting to see how it plays out.

"I think some industries are suffering at the moment", she says. "I think until it does get on to a level playing field with farmers and industry and things coming backwards and forwards - freight and things - it remains to be seen.

"There's been a change of parliament, a change of government, and we've had Covid in between and the NHS is in a crisis, so we'll have to wait and see really."

But sitting round the same table, Diane and Andrew Osborn have a different view.

"I still think we should have remained," Andrew says.

"We've made a big mistake.

We've alienated ourselves from our neighbours, we've made the people who come from Europe who filled a lot of the jobs that we didn't have the people to do feel unwelcome, and look where we are now with some of the things like the NHS and the care homes.

"We've made life really difficult for cross-Channel trade and it's more difficult for people to travel."

Diane says: "My mum was in a care home and a lot of people who were there looked after her really well, but a lot of them have all gone home now, and I think it's such a shame these industries are struggling for people."

Neither, though, would like to see the UK rejoin the EU.

"We'd just be going round in perpetual circles," Andrew says. "Going back in now isn't an option. We've got to stay with the vote and make our own country great again."

Since the referendum, polling organisation YouGov has regularly asked samples of the British public: In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU?

In August 2016, 46% of those surveyed thought it was the right decision, 42% thought it was the wrong one; 12% did not know. By 19 January 2023, this had shifted to 34% Right, 54% Wrong (and again 12% Don't Knows).

Different pollsters ask different questions. Since 2020, BMG Research and Kantar have both asked whether the UK should join the EU, or stay out.

Over this period, their polls have suggested opinion has shifted from more people saying the UK should stay out to more saying the country should rejoin.

But the gap between them is significantly narrower than the one now produced by YouGov's hindsight question, and only a few polls by any organisation have indicated that a majority of voters back rejoining.

At Stratford-upon-Avon Bridge Club, Judy Thomas is one of those who have changed their mind.

"I'm embarrassed to say I voted for Brexit," she says. "We were obviously lied to so much… it was such a big mistake… and I just feel a fool.

"It's just done so much… all the people who've had to leave the country, all the nurses and doctors, then you've got the lorries on the motorway. There are just so many things."

But Richard Shimmin, a long-term Conservative supporter, takes the opposite view. He's recently joined the Reform Party, the rebadged Brexit Party, saying the government hasn't delivered the Brexit that was promised.

"I don't believe we were lied to," he says. "I believe the government has not implemented anything that they promised to do in terms of Brexit.

"We were promised a bonfire of EU laws - that hasn't happened. We were promised we would have our own UK bill of rights - that hasn't happened. If these things had happened I think the country would be in a totally different but better position."

The debate that surrounded Brexit in the years after the referendum has undoubtedly quietened, but the disagreements clearly remain.

Findlay Caldwell, who wanted to stay in the EU, says he can't see any benefit - but the country has to move forward.

"The discussion is done, and we've got to make it work," he says.

"Now the decision has been made, I think as a country - and government - we've got to get the benefits from it and make it happen."