Is the Brexit tide turning? Ask the Don’t Knows.

Looking at the latest YouGov survey it would seem that the tide is far from turning. Although there’s some uncertainty.

In June 2016 the UK voted 51.9% to leave and 48.1% to stay.  The majority was 1.27million voters. The turnout was 72.2%.

According to YouGov, who have been polling repeated questions since August, 44-46% of people think the result was right while 42-45% of people think it was wrong.  9-14% don’t know. 

The gap is perhaps narrowing, but overall people’s views seem very entrenched. It does however indicate that the ‘Don’t knows’ are the people who decide the outcome. In the run-up to the referendum the polls fluctuated enormously with both sides attracting predictions of 39-55% while the don’t knows were anything up to 16%. But it seems that as the referendum campaign ran its course the Don’t Knows gravitated towards the Leave camp, for whatever reason. This is what swung it.

Scatter diagram of opinion poll results
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum

The YouGov polls suggest that the ‘Don’t Knows’ have now returned to their uncertainty. If they represent 10% of the electorate that could be as many as 4.6m people, way more than the Leave majority. Anything that persuades them to crystalise their thoughts will help consolidate the position of one camp or the other. If they vear towards an anti-Brexit position it will be a problem for the Government. Having said that, every opinion poll seems to have 10% don’t knows, so maybe there’s not much hope there.

And to make it worse, another YouGov question finds that even those who didn’t support Brexit now want to see it implemented. Only 21% of people want to see the result ignored.

If the Brexit tide is to turn it is the 25% of Remain voters who must be persuaded to actively oppose it. Talk of ‘the people’s will’ and the national good has, for the moment at least, cajoled them into supporting something they don’t believe in. They need to be persuaded that Brexit is not in the national good and that the referendum result was really down to people making snap decisions on the day, which could so easily have been different on a different day.

In the rest of the questions the UK public seem to take a hard line. They support May’s negotiating approach but think she should be doing it quicker. However, only 30% think a deal where Britain leaves the Customs Union and Single Market and faces customs checks and tariffs would be good for the country. Maybe soft Brexit is where we will eventually land.

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