The Telegraph has published a report on the Spring 2019 Eurobarometer poll (HERE) with the rather misleading headline, "Less than half of Britons would back staying in the EU - with no majority for any outcome, poll suggests". Glancing at it you would be tempted to think this means Brexit is somehow gaining popularity. Nothing could be more wrong. You have to read the details to discover that while 45% would vote to stay in the EU, 37% would vote to leave and 18% didn't know. The polling data is on this webpage HERE.
The sub editor was very clever. He or she didn't claim less than half of voters would back staying in, but half of Britons, including those who wouldn't vote or don't have an opinion.
But if we remove the don't knows on the basis that they wouldn't vote, the result would be 55% to 45% for remaining in the EU, in other words a far bigger majority for remain than leave achieved in the 2016 referendum.
The Eurobarometer reinforces a lot of professor John Curtice's analysis of Brexit voters current thinking (HERE) which says most (83%) leave voters have not changed their mind and the detectable drift to remain is coming from people who didn't vote at all in 2016. If you remember, when taking the electorate as a whole in 2016 only 37% voted to leave, while 35% voted to remain. 28% didn't vote.
Now the Eurobarometer (EB) says 37% would still vote to leave (same as 2016) while 45% want to remain (+10%) and 18% didn't know (-10%). In other words the big shift appears to be among the people who didn't bother in 2016, which is precisely what professor Curtice found.
The EB also has some other interesting results to various questions:
ACROSS EUROPE:
Q. Generally speaking do you think your country's EU membership has been good or bad? (page 15)
Good 61% (Up from 47% in May 2011)
Neither good or bad 27%
Bad 10%
Don't know 2%
Q. Taking everything into account do you think your counytry has benefited or not from EU membership? (Page 17)
Benefited 68%
Not benefited 23%
Don't know 9%
Q. If a referendum was held tomorrow on your country's membership of th EU how would you vote? (Page 20)
Remain 68%
Leave 14%
Don't know/not sure 18%
UK ONLY ANSWERS:
Q. Generally speaking do you think Britain's EU membership has been good or bad? (page 15)
Good 43%
Neither good or bad 28%
Bad 22%
Don't know 7%
Q. Taking everything into account do you think Britain has benefited or not from EU membership? (Page 17)
Benefited 54%
Not benefited 30%
Don't know 16%
Q. If a referendum was held tomorrow on Britain's membership of th EU how would you vote? (Page 20)
Remain 45%
Leave 37%
Don't know/not sure 18%
The bizarre thing is that in the UK twice as many people think EU membership has been good than bad and almost twice as many think we have benefited from EU membership rather than not! This is amazing in a country going through expensive and painful constitutional convulsions in order to leave the bloc from which a large majority think they have benefited. It makes no sense to me at all. No wonder Europeans shake their heads at us.
Bearing these figures in mind, The Telegraph's piece is a massive exercise in straw clutching if you ask me. Not so much a bit of spin as being strapped to a turbine rotating at maximum speed.
The Independent goes the opposite way (HERE), claiming (quite rightly) that in most EU countries support for the bloc is over 80%. The EU give the average across all EU28 at 68%. Yahoo News (HERE) says a major new study reveals remainers now have a 'considerable' lead. Strange how some newspapers can get it accurate and others can't.
Also in The Telegraph (HERE) on Thursday was a bit of rolling news quoting Philippe Lamberts, the leader of the European greens and member of the European Parliament’s Brexit Steering Group saying Farage's new Brexit Party would be powerless to wreck things in Brussels even if it triumphs in May’s European elections. He said:
“I am delighted that the elections are taking place in Britain.There are risks to these elections but there are also opportunities and I relish that. You listen to the rhetoric of [Jacob] Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage and they are speaking about the British Empire and it is long dead.
“Gone are the days when a tiny country could rule over a significant chunk of the world. Global Britain had already happened and it happened through the EU not through nuclear bombs and nuclear submarines. The British Empire is long dead and because of that Brexit is a lose-lose so you cannot make a success of it,”
This provoked outrage from Farage, ever the diplomat, who retorted:
“I think the British people have had enough of being talked down to by irrelevant nobodies like Mr Lamberts.”
And talking of irrelevant nobodies, David Campbell Bannerman, a former UKIP and now a Tory MEP, said: “The EU is the new Empire arising, but it is not a benign, democratic or ultimately peaceful one.”
For an 'empire' that is not benign, democratic or peaceful it has an awful lot of support from the countries it's 'ruling over'. I wonder if we used to do similar polling under Queen Victoria among the nations in the British empire where we used to 'democratically' appoint their governors and Viceroys?
I bet if all the EU Commissioners were appointed by Whitehall and we set all the rules, Mr Campbell-Bannerman wouldn't have any objections at all to a new Empire rising on the continent, peaceful, benign or not.
I bet if all the EU Commissioners were appointed by Whitehall and we set all the rules, Mr Campbell-Bannerman wouldn't have any objections at all to a new Empire rising on the continent, peaceful, benign or not.
