The news comes amid uncertainty surrounding Brexit, falling economic growth and rising crime across the country, with roughly four of five Brits (79 percent) believing that the UK was “on the wrong track”, the highest since the survey was first launched in 2011.

Most Brits are becoming increasingly more pessimistic about the UK’s future, a new global survey revealed.

The Ipsos MORI survey “What Worries the World?” found that only 21 percent of Brits thought the UK was “heading in the right direction”, a drop from 35 percent in January 2018. Optimism also sank to 14 percent the same time last year.

Ipsos MORI research director, Keiran Pedley, said that political instability and Brexit uncertainty were “significant contributing factors” to pessimism in the UK.

Our @IpsosMORI 'What Worries the World' series shows that 79% of Brits think the country is on the 'wrong track'. https://t.co/k17Scu6aho — Keiran Pedley (@keiranpedley) June 21, 2019

But the UK was the third most negative of the 28 surveyed nations after France and South Africa, where 77 percent believed their countries were on the wrong track and optimism sat a 42 percent – half the global average.

22 percent of Brits also said that they were becoming more nervous about rising extremism, which was amongst their top three concerns.

Climate change dominated UK woes, up eight points from May and fourth after Canada, China and Germany. 25 percent of countries polled also placed global warming at the top three of their fears.

Other issues dominating Brits’ top three concerns were crime and violence at 35 percent, healthcare at 35 percent, poverty and social inequality at 30 percent, climate change at 25 percent, and terrorism at 24 percent.

Ipsos Mori Comments on Survey Revelations

Mr Pedley said that levels of pessimism about the UK’s direction “continue to be extremely high when compared to other countries”.

“In fact, since the series started in May 2011, levels of pessimism have never been higher in Britain than they are now in mid-2019,” Mr Pedley said.

He added that the current “political turmoil and Brexit impasse” were likely to be “significant contributing factors” to the UK’s negative mood, amongst other contributing factors.

You sneering little Englander, Julia.



GDP per capita is >20% higher in Netherlands than UK. Netherlands is 10 places (!!!) higher than UK on 2019 Happiness index.



Nor Is Netherlands a global laughing stock after allowing a corrupt coup to leave its critical economic union. — SurfingRed #FBPE (@SurfingRed) June 21, 2019

Mr Pedley said: “Issues around crime, healthcare and poverty continue to worry Britons but it is also noticeable that concern about climate change is at record levels. This particular trend is supported by other Ipsos Mori research and perhaps reflects the increased focus on environmental issues in the media in past months.

“If this trend continues, we should expect issues related to climate change to play a significant role in a future British general election, whenever it comes.”

A 2019 World Happiness report, which analyses the voting behaviour, social interactions and role of digital media in countries, ranked the UK 15th amongst developed nations, with Finland, Denmark and Norway topping the list, respectively, and the US reaching 19th place.