The public wants Brexit to happen as fast as possible, says STEPHEN POLLARD

It’s the line they parrot whenever they’re on the TV or radio: 2016 was all a big mistake and now we’ve seen what Brexit entails we’ve got cold feet. It turns out that much as they might want it to be true it’s utter rubbish.

A poll published at the weekend showed that far from backtracking on Brexit the voters’ main concern is that Mrs May gets on with it and delivers what we voted for, as scheduled next March.

According to the Deltapoll figures, 62 per cent of us say we’ve not changed our minds at all.

That leaves a large chunk of voters who have.

But while they may have changed their minds and despite the claims of Remainers that there is some kind of mass nationwide regret over the 2016 vote, quite the opposite has happened.

Because of those who have switched, the largest swing is away from Remain – the reverse of the Remainers’ claim. The largest switch is in fact from Remainers to Leavers. Of the switchers, 15 per cent of Remainers now favour Brexit as opposed to 11 per cent of Leavers who want to stay in.

In actual numbers that’s 2.4 million Remain voters in 2016 who now support Brexit.

So much for Project Fear and the daily tidings of Brexit doom that have been the unending diet of propaganda spread by Remainers.

Voters are clear that they don’t buy the scare stories and still want out.

According to Martin Boon, the pollster who carried out the research, it shows “half the public believe themselves to be under siege from the political classes trying to change their minds.

But the message they are sending back is that they haven’t changed their minds”.

55 per cent of voters say they are against a second referendum of any sort (Image: GETTY)

Not that anyone should be surprised.

A poll of 10,000 people carried out by ComRes found a similar determination that Brexit should happen.

This study found that 52 per cent of voters in Labour-held constituencies were so determined to see Brexit and so worried about politicians’ backsliding that they said they would consider backing a single-issue party committed to leaving the EU “as quickly and as fully as possible”.

This is the key.

While many Remainers in both main parties have fully accepted the referendum result, many others have not. And they have spent the past two years doing everything in their power to stop Brexit.

And now, after Mrs May revealed her disastrous Chequers plan, there is an added fear that even former Remainers such as the Prime Minister, who seemed clear that their job is to deliver Brexit, are trying to water it down so that Brexit will no longer mean Brexit.

Some are honest about this and admit that they never accepted the referendum result and never stopped campaigning to reverse it.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

We live in a democracy and they’ve every right to push their view transparently and openly.

But others take the public for fools and refuse to admit that their campaign to Remain is anything of the sort.

Take the so-called People’s Vote lobby group.

What a ridiculous name.

What was the referendum if it wasn’t a People’s Vote? But leave that aside.

Brexit secretary Dominic Raab (Image: GETTY)

This time round, they say, they don’t want another referendum. No, nothing of the sort!

How could anyone accuse them of that? They simply want a vote on whatever deal is secured by Mrs May. It’s not so much misleading as taking the public for idiots.

The entire purpose of the People’s Vote is to undermine and reverse the 2016 vote. That is all it exists for. That is its sole function.

But they refuse to be honest about this – which would be a perfectly honourable position – because they know the People don’t want another Vote.

This weekend’s poll, for example, found that just 15 per cent want a vote on the final deal and even they say they do not want a re-run on whether or not Britain leaves the EU. And 55 per cent of voters say they are against a second referendum of any sort.

The poll also showed that 48 per cent are fully wise to what is happening, saying that the political classes are making heavy weather of Brexit in the hope that the public changes its mind.

Which is why presumably 40 per cent also say we should just leave next March with or without any deal.

This means that three things are now abundantly clear whatever the Remainers would have us believe.

First, there is no appetite for another vote. The public is clear that we voted to leave the EU and that is what needs to happen.

Second, Brexit must mean Brexit.

Voters can see for themselves the attempts to frustrate Brexit by the back door and want a clean break.

They won’t put up with slippery politicians selling them a pup.

The largest swing is from Remainers to Leavers (Image: GETTY)

Finally, the renewal of Project Fear just isn’t working.

In 2016 Remainers tried to paint a picture of the disaster that would befall us the moment we voted to leave.

Now they are trying the same trick, telling us the same thing about the world collapsing when we leave. And it’s washing over us.

Clear as this all is of course it won’t make any difference. The Remainers will still campaign to overturn the referendum. But try as they might they face one insuperable problem: the voters backed Brexit in 2016 and still do. And that’s all that really matters.