Brexit Takes the Lead In Latest Poll

ICM polling has a new suvey today on the British referendum to Leave or Remain in the European Union (I used caps because those are the official choices on the ballot). Via the Guardian, for whom the poll was done:

Public opinion has shifted towards the UK leaving the EU, two Guardian/ICM polls suggest as the referendum campaign picks up pace – with voters split 52% -48% in favour of Brexit, whether surveyed online or by phone.

Previous polls have tended to show voters surveyed online to be more in favour of Britain leaving the EU. But in the latest ICM research, carried out for the Guardian, both methodologies yielded the same result – a majority in favour of leaving.

“Our poll rather unhinges a few accepted orthodoxies,” said ICM’s director, Martin Boon. “It is only one poll but, in a rather unexpected reverse of polling assumptions so far, both our phone poll and our online poll are consistent on both vote intentions and on the EU referendum.”

This is the first phone poll in over a month to have Leave in the lead. The significance of this is large not simply for the result, but due also to the nature of the campaign, as Tom Goodenough explains in the Spectator.

To give an idea of comparison here, an ICM phone poll also carried out by the Guardian two weeks ago handed remain a 10 per cent lead. With the purdah period having now kicked in – taking away the Government’s advantage in being able to count on its huge resources to convince Brits of the need to stay in – these results will act as a big boost for leave.

“Purdah” is a fancy way of saying the civil service can no longer weigh in on the vote, which means Prime Minister David Cameron (who very much supports Remain, but promised the referendum back in 2009 when he was Opposition Leader to prevent getting defenestrated by euroskeptic Tories) can no longer put out analyses put together by the bureaucracy insisting that he is right. In effect, it levels the playing field somewhat between the government and its critics.

So, with Leave now ensured a bigger stage, and already ahead in the polls, can they win? Sure, they can, but that’s not the way to bet, for a number of reasons.

First, the UK, in general, is the wrong country for this sort of thing. Readers of this space are well aware of my loathing for the European Union, but I’ve always felt the revolt against the Brusselian Empire would come from an impoverished nation inside the “eurozone” (the group of nations within the EU that share the euro currency), rather than from a prosperous country outside the zone. Of course, England and Northern Ireland in particular have always had loud anti-EU electorates since the EU was morphed into its current form (from the European Economic Community), but usually not by majorities large enough to counter the virulently pro-EU Scotland (more on Wales below).

Speaking of Scotland, they’ve been down this road before with referendum polling. Two years ago, the Scots voted on whether or not to leave the UK. For the most part polls had a majority of Scots saying No, until YouGov put Yes ahead by 2 points with 12 days to go. The next week and a half was awash with Nationalist fervor and Unionist panic…until Voting Day, when No won with 55% of the vote. So there is a strong possibility that this is an outlier poll. Add to that the horrific performance of pollsters in general last year, and there is reason to take this survey with a grain of salt…or a lotswife.

Speaking again of Scotland, there is a chance a Leave vote could trigger another independence referendum, which may be enough to get some voters to think twice. The Scottish National Party has been looking for a game-changing excuse to rerun the referendum every since they lost the first one (without a game-changing event, there would be no point). Well, England and Northern Ireland yanking the Scots out of the EU could be the very thing the “Nats” could use. Unionists in Scotland have been airing their fears on that for months. More voters may listen to them now, and act accordingly.

As for the poll itself, the phone piece had Wales supporting Leave more than England. That’s. Not. Happening.

Finally, there is the matter of the Leave campaign itself. No one has really covered themselves in glory during this campaign, but the Remain camp (via the government) has dominated the headlines and the narrative. That may have been more helpful to Leave than people realize. Keep in mind, the most prominent spokesman for Leave – former London Mayor Boris Johnson, has already thrown the Hitler label at the Brussels crew (it was widely agreed to be an unwise move). Until this point, Remain has been so prominent that voters could have considered voting Leave as a way to vote against the PM (although he is still somewhat popular) or would-be PM and current Chancellor George Osborne (far less popular). The Brits may be willing to vote against Osborne, but for Boris? For Nigel Farage? If it boils down to a personality contest, Leave is not necesarily in the advantage. Moreover, and much more importantly, the Leave campaign (except for the brilliant and far-sighted Dan Hannan) has been just as quick to spread fear, panic, and despair as the Remain crew.

In short, Leave will have to up its game to turn this poll into the momentum needed to bring the UK out of the EU. I would love to see it happen. I would also, still, be quite surprised.