I missed this poll carried out in August by Opinium for The Observer (HERE). It covers party political stuff mainly but buried inside the tables, which are in an excel workbook, is a question about the referendum. You can find it on the EUR6 tab at the bottom of the front page. Two thousand people were asked: If there were another referendum on whether or not the UK should leave the European Union how do you think you would you vote?
The answers are revealing. I summarise them below:
- Remain 47%
- Leave 44%
- Don't know 5%
- Wouldn't vote 3%
If I exclude the don't knows and the wouldn't votes, then the result is 51.6% remain to 48.35% leave, almost an exact reverse of the actual result in 2016. The number of older +65 voters who say they would vote to leave is 59% a fall of 5% over the result in June 2016 (HERE). But because Opinium and YouGov don't use the same age grouping it isn't possible to fully compare the different sections of the population.
However, YouGov in 2016 told us 29% of the 18-24 age group voted to leave and since the older the voters the more likely they were to vote leave, one would expect the 18-34 age group in 2017 (assuming no changing of minds) would be higher. But in fact Opinium tell us it has dropped to 26%.
I do not claim this shows a huge change. There is still around half the population who want to leave. But in March this year I wrote a blog post (HERE) on the demographic argument suggesting as older "leave" voters pass away and are replaced by younger "remain" voters we would see balance by 2021 - unless people changed their mind.
Public opinion is, I am convinced, now starting to move towards remain. We are probably at balance already after six months, with remain perhaps even having a slight edge and any delays in leaving the EU will reveal more of the problems to more of the population. The benefit of staying in will be seen to outweigh the losses and it will surely be hard for Brexiteers to claim they are carrying out the will of the people when opinion polling suggests they are not.
However, YouGov in 2016 told us 29% of the 18-24 age group voted to leave and since the older the voters the more likely they were to vote leave, one would expect the 18-34 age group in 2017 (assuming no changing of minds) would be higher. But in fact Opinium tell us it has dropped to 26%.
I do not claim this shows a huge change. There is still around half the population who want to leave. But in March this year I wrote a blog post (HERE) on the demographic argument suggesting as older "leave" voters pass away and are replaced by younger "remain" voters we would see balance by 2021 - unless people changed their mind.
Public opinion is, I am convinced, now starting to move towards remain. We are probably at balance already after six months, with remain perhaps even having a slight edge and any delays in leaving the EU will reveal more of the problems to more of the population. The benefit of staying in will be seen to outweigh the losses and it will surely be hard for Brexiteers to claim they are carrying out the will of the people when opinion polling suggests they are not.
