Professor Sir John Curtice has a useful piece on the WhatUKthinks website (HERE) about whether or not voter's perceptions of the Brexit negotiations might have any effect on their voting intention if there is another referendum. A few of his comments are worth repeating here:
He says so far:
"There appears at most to have been a slight tilt in favour of Remain, but much of this shift appears to be occasioned by the fact that those who abstained in 2016 are markedly more likely to say that they would now vote Remain rather than Leave"
I think we knew this and although it is slight, this is in my opinion a far better position than if the tilt was in favour of leaving. People are LESS enthusiastic about Brexit rather than MORE. This is good, albeit not yet good enough.
"Those 2016 Leave voters who think the government is doing badly [in the negotiations...] are somewhat less likely to say they would vote Leave again, but at 87% the proportion is still very high and is not much below the equivalent figure of 95% amongst those 2016 Leave voters who think the government is handling the process well".
About 50% of Leavers think the government is doing badly (see HERE page 12) so they would lose about 6% of their vote if the negotiations go badly.
"In contrast, only 71% of 2016 Remain voters who think that the UK government is handling Brexit well would now vote Remain, well down on the equivalent figure of 96% amongst those who think the process is being handled badly".
But only 9 % of Remain voters think the government is doing well so we would lose about 3% (29% of 9%) of our vote if the negotiations go well. Hence, the way the negotiations pan out will have an impact.
And in terms of the economy:-
However, only 66% of 2016 Leave voters who now believe that the UK economy will get worse as a result of Brexit say they would vote Leave again – well below the 98% figure amongst those Leave voters who think the economy will get better. True, here too perceptions matter even more to the loyalty of 2016 Remain voters – only 45% who think the economy will get better would now vote the same way again compared with 98% of those who think it will get worse. But even so, it appears that, in contrast to arguments about how well the Brexit process is being handled upon which much of the commentary of the first year of the Brexit process has been inclined to focus, the debate about the economic consequences of Brexit does appear have the potential to persuade Leave as well as Remain voters to change their minds.
The briefing paper released last year (HERE) shows - table 6 page 10 - the number of leave voters who think the economy is going to get worse is rising. In February 2017 only about 15% thought the economy would get worse, by October it was 21%. Those leavers thinking it would get better fell from 54% to 45% in the same period.
I have always thought the economy is key and this confirms it. The figures suggest that 66% of the 21% (and rising) who think the economy will get worse would not vote leave again. This means about 14% and more than enough to overturn the referendum result.
So, I think we should watch the economic indicators. When things turn bad the polls will really start to move.
