The Sunday Times last weekend carried a story that you may have already seen about polling on Brexit: Only 29% would back Brexit now — poll proves tables have turned. The news isn’t surprising to you and me since we’ve seen the slow but inexorable shift in public opinion over the past six years or so. What is surprising is that The Sunday Times should commission a poll and make a splash about it now, with both major parties refusing to even mention Brexit and Reform UK, with Farage at the helm, apparently set to form the next government. What can it all mean?
The ST article says: “The survey of 2,113 people conducted between July 22 and 24 showed a major shift in public sentiment towards the EU, with support for Remain increasing by four percentage points in just over a year.”
To add to the puzzle, the same story is lifted from the ST and reported straight, and with little comment in pages of The Telegraph: Fewer than a third of voters would back Brexit again, poll finds. Their story says that the results "represent a marked shift in attitudes towards being part of the EU less than ten years after the historic result in 2016" and adds: "Supporters of Sir Keir Starmer’s approach to restoring closer ties with European partners will see the results as a sign that the policy shift is the right move."
The 1122 comments below the Telegraph report are mixed, to say the least:
Some readers, like Messrs Harris and Kittel, seem to recognise it has all been a disaster:
The survey, conducted by More in Common from July 24 to 27, polled 2,113 adults in Great Britain, excluding Northern Ireland. It was a serious survey.
However, for reasons best known to themselves, the ST headline was fixated on the 29% figure while The Telegraph talked about fewer than a third of voters. They are both wrong, exaggerating the actual result. If you exclude Don’t Knows (8%) and Would Not Votes (11%) the actual figure is 36%.
You can see this at WhatUKthinks where the 64-36% result has been added to the aggregate of the last six polls:
This is still very bad for Brexiters, but not quite as bad as the headlines would have us believe.
Note that another pollster, BMG, had the figures at 53-47% as recently as the end of June. BMG tends to always be on the low side, and I’m not sure who commissioned their poll. I suspect both are wrong, and the answer lies somewhere in between, but much closer to 64%. I don't think we will see a continuing shift in opinion, don't forget the 1975 referendum was 67-33% so there has always been about a third of the country resolutely against the EU.
I don't think we can hope to get much more than 66% today.
The same poll also says 58% are opposed to the idea that we should quit the European Convention on Human Rights, while 28% thought we should. This is a clear 2:1 majority in favour of the UK remaining in the ECHR. Robert Jenrick, the Tory leadership hopeful, was on Radio 4 at the weekend advocating we should leave, which just shows the party is still committed to wandering the wilderness for the foreseeable future.
But I return to the question of why commission the poll now and why make a big story about it?
Has the Murdoch dynasty had a change of heart? Has some politician or party started to put a few feelers out to see what the reaction might be to a big rethink on Brexit? Is it the start of a bit of pitch rolling to prepare the population for an about-turn?
Is it intended to spike the guns of Farage's campaign? He was, after all, the original architect of Brexit, and surely cannot claim he was right about it all along. He will come under increasing pressure as we get closer to 2029: how can we trust you when you were totally deluded about Brexit?
That Reform UK is doing so well at the moment proves (to me, anyway) that most voters have no idea what principles they are using when it comes to electing a government. A lot of people are paranoid about 40-50,000 people arriving here every year in small boats and think Farage has the answer. He might have, although I doubt it very much, but his other policies on the NHS, the economy, and taxes would be utterly disastrous and make Liz Truss look like a genius.
If voters focus on a single, relatively trivial issue, one that particularly bothers them, and they ignore the bigger picture about the general philosophy, values, and overall competence of those campaigning to govern us, we will never get anywhere.
Trump trade tariffs
Paul Krugman is an American economist, a distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He was once a columnist for The New York Times but now writes a Substack blog.
I thought you might like to read his thoughts on the recent US-EU trade 'deal' and what he calls the "apparent concessions" made by Brussels:
"The optics of the Trump-EU deal were humiliating, and optics matter. If you examine the substance, however, it starts to look as if Europe played Trump for a fool. Specifically, a fossil fool.
"The EU made two sort-of pledges to Trump. First, that it would invest $600 billion in the United States. Second, that it would buy $750 billion worth of U.S. energy, mainly oil and gas, over the next three years. The first promise was empty, while the second was nonsense."
It is as I suggested the other day. The EU Commission has run rings around Trump (as Starmer has, too) and his policy on tariffs will soon be struck down by the courts anyway.
