BRITISH voters want a strong leader who is willing to break the rules and force through wide scale reform after three years of Brexit crisis pushed confidence in the political system to a 15-year low.

Research by the Hansard Society found that the 2016 referendum revealed a UK divided over much more than EU membership.

It has also sparked impassioned debate about everything from secession and immigration to capitalism, empire and what it means to be British.

Yet over a week since the UK was originally supposed to leave the EU on March 29, nothing is resolved: it remains uncertain how, when or if it ever will.

The research also found that 54 per cent of voters want a strong leader who is willing to break the rules, while 72 per cent said the system needs “quite a lot” or “a great deal” of improvement.

Confidence in the system at the lowest level in the 15-year history of the survey, lower even than after the 2009 expense scandal when lawmakers were shown to have charged taxpayers for everything.

It noted that they also charged taxpayers from an ornamental duck house to cleaning out a moat.

According to the Hansard Society, opinions of the system of governing are at their lowest point in the 15-year Audit series, worse now than in the aftermath of the MPs’ expenses scandal.

“People are pessimistic about the country’s problems and their possible solution with sizeable numbers willing to entertain radical political changes.

`Just a quarter of people had confidence in lawmakers’ handling of Brexit,’’ it noted.

The survey was conducted between Nov. 30 and Dec. 12 by Ipsos MORI.

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– Apr. 8, 2019 @ 12:49 GMT |