A new YouGov survey suggests it’s a case of unrequited love between the UK and EU member states. A majority of European participants said they’d be unwilling to help Britain in a crisis – much to the annoyance of many Britons.
The survey published on Monday by UK polling company YouGov questioned 21,000 citizens from 13 EU member states and the UK, which will officially leave the bloc when the transition period ends on December 31.
Even after a tempestuous Brexit process, the majority of Britons would still have love for EU nations in a crisis, the results revealed. However, nine out of the 13 other states said the feeling was most certainly not mutual.
Greek, Finnish and French people would be the most reluctant to help if the UK was in dire straits. Meanwhile, citizens in influential EU countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain also said they would be unwilling to give financial aid if needed.
Only Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Romania would be happy to help Britons through a crisis, according to the poll.
Countries that Britons are willing to help in a crisis that are NOT willing to help the UK in a crisis…GermanyFranceSpainItalyNetherlandsGreeceFinlandHungaryLithuania…and those that WOULD help usDenmarkSwedenPolandRomaniahttps://t.co/l2GVhSLIyCpic.twitter.com/TpzH3zCl0v
The cold response revealed by the results has irked many Britons on social media. The thorny issue of Brexit was cited as the predominant reason for the majority of EU nations showing a lack of love for the UK.
“The countries who spent years insulting, attacking, goading and taking money from us… STILL hate us,”tweeted one commenter, who also suggested that only EU-remain supporters would judge the UK as “the ‘bad’ party in this equation.”
Another commenter claimed that the poll showed that voting for Brexit was the right call, saying the UK needed to forge new links with other countries and not rely “on our European neighbors.”
However, there were others online who ostensibly seemed unsurprised, with one person suggesting that “Brexit burned a lot of bridges.” Another put the hostility down to how successive UK governments had treated EU member states.
This is what happens when our government doesn’t represent the people and only represents the extremists, when it comes to our interactions with other countries.Look at how our governments have behaved towards those countries. Is it any wonder their people don’t like us?
Negotiations between London and Brussels to seal a new trade agreement from 2021 have stalled in recent months. A major stumbling block revolves around EU state aid rules, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson refusing to be bound by them.
Johnson’s administration has also refused to sign up to EU environmental standards and labor laws, insisting that the purpose of Brexit was to allow the UK to decide its own regulations.
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