Polls 107 and 108 have been published in the WhatUKthinks series asking: In hindsight was Britain right or wrong to vote to leave the EU? They show a solid lead for WRONG (HERE) of 7% and 9% respectively. All good. See the figures HERE.
The latest poll was taken on 4th February. Removing don't knows gives 55% to 45% for thinking Brexit has been a ghastly mistake. I can't see the gap diminishing. The high water mark was on June 23rd 2016 and the tide has been ebbing slowly ever since.
However, I still see commentators claiming there is no movement in the polls. Even professor Sir John Curtice has previously said there hasn't been much change. But he has written an analysis (HERE) where he is at last confirming, "there has been a modest but discernible softening of the Leave vote".
He says:
"In recent months, though, the Remain lead has grown somewhat in our poll of polls. By the beginning of October, it had crept up to Remain 53%, Leave 47%. Now, since the turn of the year it has increased further to Remain 54%, Leave 46%. This movement has also been replicated in the pattern of responses to the question that YouGov regularly ask, ‘In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU?’. Until the 2017 general election typically more people said that the decision to leave the EU was right than stated it was wrong. Since then, however, the oppose has been the case. Even so, by the spring of 2018, on average the proportion who said that the decision was wrong (45%) was still only three points higher than the proportion who said it was right (42%). However, in the readings that YouGov has taken in the last three months, that lead has grown on average to as much as eight points, with as many as 48% saying the decision was wrong, and only 40% that it was right".
He concludes most of the shift in opinion is due to people who didn't vote in 2016, for whatever reason, including those who were too young, being far more pro EU than the average voter. However, lest we get too carried away he continues:
"Nobody should assert on the basis of the analysis in this blog that it is now clear that the outcome of a second referendum would be different from that of the first. Given the potential difficulties that faces all polling, the Remain lead is both too narrow and too reliant on the views of those who did not vote in June 2016 (who might or might not vote in another ballot) for anything other than caution to be the order of the day. Even if the polls are entirely accurate, such a narrow lead might still be overturned if Leave were to fight the better campaign – as they are widely adjudged to have done in 2016.
"That said, it looks though there has been a modest but discernible softening of the Leave vote. As a result, those who wish to question whether Brexit does still represent ‘the will of the people’ do now have rather more evidence with which to back their argument. In the meantime, it might at least be thought somewhat ironic that doubts about Brexit appear to have grown in the minds of some Leave voters just as the scheduled date for the UK’s departure is coming into sight".
Given that there will certainly be a delay in Article 50 - perhaps to June or even longer - there is the potential for more of the problems not so much to appear, since we know already what they are, but for them to penetrate the public mind to the extent that on Brexit day there is a strong majority for remaining in the EU.
What will the government do then?
