Professor Sir John Curtice, our foremost psephologist, has produced a report (HERE) by his NatCen organisation for WhatUKthinks. It's title is: Do voters still want to leave the EU, and it looks at the state of public opinion two years after the vote, "This paper reports on the latest findings of a two-year multiwave study of public attitudes towards the Brexit process, examining which attitudes have and have not shifted during that time, and the implications of the shifts that have occurred for the willingness of people to vote Remain or Leave once again".
To save you reading the whole 34 pages I can give you the conclusion that Professor Curtice reaches:
"Britain is still more or less evenly divided between a body of voters who would vote Remain and another group that would vote Leave. Yet from the outset of the Brexit process support for Leave has generally proven a little less firm than that for Remain, and the difference between the willingness of the two sets of voters to vote the same way again may also have widened a little. Meanwhile, those who did not vote in 2016 are noticeably more inclined to say they would now vote Remain rather than Leave. As a result, instead of a narrow majority in favour of leaving the EU recorded in the referendum in June, there might now be a narrow majority in favour of Remain,"
I must say Professor Curtice is being rather cautious.
The poll of 2048 people in June 2018 says in a hypothetical repeat referendum (page 14) the result would be 59% remain to 41% leave. These are absolutely stunning figures but only really confirm the slow shift to remain.
The reason he is cautious is that when asked how they actually voted in 2016 the result is 53% remain, 47% leave and therefore he thinks the results may be skewed towards remainers. Professor Curtice adds this comment below the table where the figures are shown:
However, a glance at the bottom half of the table strikes a note of caution. We also asked respondents (either when they were first interviewed for BSA or at the first panel interview they completed after June 2016) how they voted in the EU referendum in June 2016. This reveals that, despite the various forms of weighting that have been adopted in order to make the sample as representative as possible, the proportion saying they voted Remain two years ago has gradually been creeping up in our surveys. As a result, in our most recent survey, 53% of our sample said that they had voted Remain, five points above the proportion that that option actually secured in the EU referendum.
However, even neglecting this he concluded there has been a 6% swing to remain and a new vote would be 54% remain - 46% leave.
The question he doesn't address is WHY the number saying they voted remain has, as he puts it "been creeping up" since 2016. I wonder if it isn't because of seeing the chaos of Brexit, the number of people who don't want to admit even to themselves that they voted leave, is beginning to rise? After the war, it was said you couldn't find anyone in Germany who admitted supporting the Nazis. I don't suggest leavers can be likened to Nazis but I think you get my drift.
And:
"only 81% of Leave voters say they would back Brexit again, whereas the proportion of Remain voters who would vote the same way has more or less held steady at 90%. In short, there seems to have been something of a slow, long-term erosion of the coalition of support that backed Leave in 2016".
Note the 81% who say they would vote leave again is also deceptive. Of those under 40 it's down to 70%, while those over 60 are at 89%. As time goes on and our leave voting elders shuffle off their mortal coils, it's clear what is going to happen.
Note the 81% who say they would vote leave again is also deceptive. Of those under 40 it's down to 70%, while those over 60 are at 89%. As time goes on and our leave voting elders shuffle off their mortal coils, it's clear what is going to happen.
The London Evening Standard report it HERE
