Piers Morgan has delivered his verdict on the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum: it has been “a pretty well unmitigated disaster” and the British public would vote to rejoin the European Union “in a landslide” if asked again today.
Speaking on BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg – the same programme in which he earlier declared Nigel Farage “dead in the water” over the £5m gift – Morgan was direct about where he places responsibility for the damage of the past decade.
“What happened in 2016, ten years ago? We voted to leave the European Union. I had an open mind. I voted to Remain, but I said ‘OK, Brexit is the brave new world, if it’s going to change our fortunes for the better I’d be the first to say great.’ And it’s been a pretty well unmitigated disaster.”
He described Brexit as a “self-inflicted injury” distinct from the other crises that successive governments have had to manage, and named Farage directly as the man who sold it to the country. “Who was it sold this to the country? Nigel Farage, the snake oil salesman. I hope he comes on your show next week and I hope you properly grill him about why should we believe you now?”
The call for a referendum
Morgan went further than the cautious positioning of mainstream Labour politicians, calling explicitly for Burnham to hold a second referendum and predicting the result. “The first thing Andy Burnham should do, apart from call an election, if he calls it and wins it, have another referendum. Ask the British public whether they still believe that Brexit has been a great success. And I think this country would vote in a landslide to go back into the European Union, albeit in a leading role to reform the EU.”
The political gap
Morgan’s willingness to say explicitly what the polling shows is notable because most mainstream politicians still will not. Lord Heseltine described Brexit as a “heinous crime” for which Farage, Johnson and Gove should answer. Barnier said Britain could rejoin on a “short” timeline if it had the political will. Even the civil servant who led Britain’s exit from the EU has called the rejoin debate overdue.
Andy Burnham has said he wants Britain back in Europe “within his lifetime” but has not committed to a referendum or a timeline. David Lammy refused five times on Sky News to say whether the UK should rejoin, prompting widespread criticism that Labour’s leadership was unwilling to engage with a question that a clear majority of the public have already answered. A Question Time audience member recently made the case for Labour to unite around EU rejoin to sustained applause.
The gap between public sentiment and political positioning has rarely been wider. Morgan is not a politician and is not constrained by the triangulation that keeps Labour’s leadership from saying what the polling shows. His willingness to say it plainly – and to name Farage as the man responsible for the “self-inflicted injury” – lands differently than the same argument made from a partisan position.
Morgan attributed the political chaos of the past decade partly to “a succession of terrible governments” but was clear that Brexit was the underlying wound. Since the 2016 vote, Britain has had Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer. Six prime ministers in ten years. The constitutional instability, the trade damage, the missed investment, the diplomatic friction – none of it was inevitable. It was, as Morgan said, a choice. A self-inflicted injury.
Even Zelensky called on the UK to rejoin the EU alongside Ukraine and Turkey for European security reasons. The case is now being made from every direction – by former Conservative prime ministers, former EU negotiators, economists, pollsters, security leaders and now, unambiguously, by Piers Morgan on the BBC’s most-watched Sunday political programme.
The Farage connection
Morgan’s line about Farage as the “snake oil salesman” who sold Brexit is not simply a retrospective verdict on 2016. It connects directly to the story running in parallel on the same Sunday morning. Farage is now under formal Parliamentary Standards investigation over his undisclosed £5m personal gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. He has given three contradictory accounts of what the money was for. He has been described as “dead in the water” by Morgan on the same programme. The FCA has been asked to investigate whether his public advocacy for Harborne’s financial interests constituted an undisclosed regulated financial promotion.
Whether Burnham will take Morgan’s advice on a second referendum remains to be seen. But with the polling where it is, the senior figures who have spoken, and the accumulated evidence of what Brexit has actually delivered, the case for asking the question again is harder to dismiss than it has ever been.
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