UK in a Changing Europe have produced a report to mark the half way point in the Article 50 negotiations and although I haven't read it all, the section on demographics makes fascinating reading because it confirms everything we thought about how Brexit will probably be reversed in a few years time. The report doesn't quite go that far but I think it is the inescapable conclusion. The report, Article 50 One Year On, is HERE and the section on demographics starts on page 35.
They have studied the changing demographics and how older pro leave voters (C2DEs) will pass on while younger, better educated, more socially liberal and pro EU (ABC1s) voters will join the cohort and make a difference. They said:
"We can use a two-step process to make a rough estimate of the potential impact of these demographic trends at three future points: the end of the Article 50 negotiation period in 2019, the anticipated end of the transition period in 2021, and 2026, a decade on from the EU vote. First, we simply project forward the demographic trends found in the British Social Attitudes data to provide estimates of the population composition at these three points. Secondly, we use a statistical model of how these demographic factors predicted Brexit vote choice to estimate how the projected demographic change affects overall support for Brexit in the electorate. The table below offers a summary of how the population will change on these three characteristics, and then how support for Brexit might change accordingly".
And then go on to conclude:
All else being equal, these changes will tend to pull opinion in a pro-European direction. We estimate they would be sufficient to produce a majority of 52%-48% for Remain in 2021, and 54%-46% by 2026. However, in 2016 many Remain voters also wanted a reduction of EU powers, so the demographic trend is not necessarily one in favour of reversing Brexit.
And remember this is not asking anyone to change their mind, although I am still convinced they will and make the statistics even more convincingly pro EU. The report also says:
By the time of the 2016 EU referendum, the pre-European Economic Community (EEC) cohort had shrunk to just over one in four of the British population, while the post-Maastricht cohort had risen to nearly 40%. The eurosceptic views of older cohorts were more strongly represented in the 2016 referendum, as turnout was much higher amongst the old than the young. But differential turnout cannot hold back the tide of generational change indefinitely, and mortality and cohort replacement will pull the balance of opinion towards the more pro-EU views of younger generations in years to come.
To make this point about these social grades, if you look at the latest YouGov poll of March 6th (HERE) on page 6 you can see that the wealthier, better educated, more socially liberal ABC1 class think Brexit is WRONG by 54 - 36% while the C2DE class, poorer, less qualified, socially conservative, think it was RIGHT by 52 - 33%. But since we know the ABC1 group is growing while the C2DE group is shrinking it doesn't take a genius to see sooner or later we will be back in the EU.
The problem for the government is the further away from the EU we become the more Brexit makes sense but the poorer we will be. The closer we are to the EU, Brexit makes less and less sense (rule taker without influence) but the less poor we shall be. If we go for a soft Brexit I think it is logical to remain in and I also think most voters would accept it.
And on the economics of Brexit the report (page 44) tries to look at the impact of Brexit so far.
In the year prior to the vote, UK growth was 0.6 percentage points higher than the average for other
G7 members, while in 2017 it was 0.9 percentage points lower. This is a crude comparison but does
suggest that the referendum result reduced UK growth.
A more sophisticated version of this same approach has been conducted by academics from the universities of Bonn, Oxford and Tübingen. They construct a control group of countries whose average growth exactly matches UK growth prior to the Brexit vote and then compare GDP growth in the UK and the control group following the referendum. They conclude that by the third quarter of 2017 UK GDP was approximately 1.3 percentage points lower than it would have been if the UK had not voted for Brexit. This implies a decrease in output of approximately £500 million per week during the quarter.
What was on the side of that red bus?
