Opinion The Express View on four-day workweek experiment: Is Britain turning European after Brexit?

There was a simple — if parochial — logic behind the successful campaign for Britain’s exit from the European Union in 2016, which culminated in Brexit in 2020. What is good for Belgium may not be so for Birmingham, and the lives and values of those living around the Thames are vastly different than on the banks of the Seine. But ideas — fads, really — seem to be immune to the newly-created borders between Europe and the country formerly known as Great Britain.

Much is being made about the “major breakthrough” in one of the largest-ever experiments with a four-day workweek in Britain. Sixty-one companies were part of the six-month trial and 56 of them have opted to continue with the programme, while 18 have made it permanent. The brainchild of 4 Day Week Global, a not-for-profit organisation founded in New Zealand, the trial was overseen by the think tank Autonomy and a team of academics. Workers were allowed to work four days instead of five, with the same salary and workload. “Work-life balance”, a buzzword if ever there was one, is the goal of the trial.

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Before the UK, Belgium and France have seen the widespread deployment of the four-day work week. But Britain, trying to find its place in the world on its own again, need not have followed them. After all, wasn’t the argument behind Brexit that the hard-working citizen was unable to work enough thanks to Europe’s open borders and policies? And, that British culture was so unique that it was chafing under the yoke of Brussels? As it turns out, people on the Island are just fond of less work and more leisure as their counterparts in the Mediterranean. It seems that while it’s possible to leave Europe in a huff, Europe doesn’t leave you.