LONDON — Brits voted for Brexit because of immigration. Now they want to turn back the clock.

By a whopping two-to-one margin, voters now favor the pre-2021 immigration system to the one that has taken shape since leaving the EU, according to striking new polling commissioned by POLITICO.

Some 41 percent of the public say they would prefer “Britain’s immigration policy prior to leaving the European Union” versus just 19 percent who want “Britain’s current immigration policy, implemented since leaving the European Union,” the polling conducted by More in Common found.

Immigration loomed large in the 2016 EU referendum campaign, with the Leave camp’s “breaking point” posters and rows about free movement making headlines throughout the build-up to the vote.

The idea was that leaving the bloc would give Britain back “control” of its borders and create a fairer system. But the widespread perception is that’s not how it turned out.

Split by party, left-leaning Green voters are the most keen on turning the clock back, with 60 percent preferring the old system versus 16 percent the current one.

Labour and the Lib Dems aren’t far behind, with 46 percent and 49 percent yearning for the pre-Brexit days respectively.

But even the Euroskeptics backing Nigel Farage’s Reform party refuse to endorse the current arrangements, with 37 percent backing the pre-Brexit approach, just 21 percent favoring the post-Brexit system, and an unusually high 42 percent saying they don’t know.

Wistfully looking back?

But the results don’t necessarily mean voters are desperate for a return to EU-style freedom of movement, according to researchers whom POLITICO asked about the figures.

Since leaving the EU, the U.K. hasn’t just ditched free movement with the bloc, it has also significantly liberalized its rest-of-world visa system — resulting in a large increase in migration from other countries.

Net migration to the U.K. was 431,000 in 2024 — significantly higher than rates in the 2010s when numbers “typically fluctuated between 200,000 and 300,000,” according to an analysis by Oxford University’s Migration Observatory.

Levels were even higher in 2022 and 2023, and some commentators have taken to calling this increase the “Boriswave” — after the PM who brought in the new system.

According to Sophie Stowers, research manager at More in Common, the results are unlikely to be a reflection of people “wistfully looking back at a time of free movement.”

Instead, she says, immigration “has risen in salience since 2020, partly because of increases in net migration caused by reforms to the migration system that people are unhappy with, but also because of the surge in small boat crossings.”

As well as losing their reciprocal rights to live and work in other European countries, British voters haven’t even seen lower levels of migration to Britain — creating a situation where nobody of any political persuasion is happy.

Marley Morris, associate director at the IPPR think tank, said the results appear to reflect “nostalgia from the public for our pre-Brexit immigration model,” but added it would be “rash to assume this means there is public appetite for a return to free movement of people.”

“The overall preference for the pre-Brexit system is most likely the combined result of, on the one hand, the longstanding cohort of Remain supporters continuing to back a pro-EU position, alongside a wider frustration with recent immigration policy, including among those who voted leave.”

So nobody’s happy, but not necessarily for the same reasons.

Rating outcomes

Georgina Sturge, data consultant at Oxford’s Migration Observatory and author of the book “Bad Data: How Governments, Politicians and the Rest of Us Get Misled by Numbers,” said the results must be interpreted carefully.

“The key question for us is to what extent people are rating immigration systems based on a robust understanding of their different features, and how much of it is just people going off a vague impression — in other words, which systems give them good and bad vibes?” she said. “People’s knowledge of the ins and outs of different immigration systems is very limited on the whole.”

This much is obvious from More in Common’s results. POLITICO also had the pollster ask people what immigration systems they liked and disliked. The most popular was an “Australian-style points-based immigration system,” with a net 46 percent support. The least popular was “Britain’s current immigration policy,” with -39 percent support.

Just one problem: Since leaving the EU, the U.K.’s immigration policy has literally been an Australian-style points-based immigration system.

“Getting people to rate these different options doesn’t necessarily tell us what system people would actually prefer but rather how positively or negatively they rate the association it conjures up in their mind,” Sturge said. “People’s understanding of the true differences between the two systems is limited. They’re rating outcomes.”

“Even if people have a better impression of immigration in the pre-Brexit era, the government cannot turn back the clock,” Sturge added. “Most obviously, the small boats route did not exist for most of the pre-Brexit period, and successive governments have failed to eliminate it — and rejoining the EU would not eliminate it either. The same arguments against being part of EU free movement would no doubt also resurface if a serious discussion about rejoining were to start up.”