Weaker In: Why Remain would lose a second EU referendum

Last week, the forces of liberalism in Britain held one of their very rare protest marches, as the “People’s Vote” campaign led a march through London in support of a second referendum on EU membership. The numbers attending the march (700,000) has led to another round of speculation about the possibility of another EU referendum taking place before the UK leaves the EU in March 2019.

But, as this blog post will argue, the chances of Remainers actually winning a second EU referendum are slim. 

Part 1: Nothing has changed 

In a recent segment on the BBC comedy programme ‘Have I Got News For You’, comedian Henning Wehn argued that:

“It’s absolutely pointless to have a second referendum, because for anyone to vote any different they would have to admit they got it wrong the first time round. No-one’s going to do that. All that talk about ‘Oh, if there is a second referendum there will be 80-20 in favour of Remain’ – not on your nelly. No chance. 

"There will be exactly the same outcome, because: say you’re weren’t happy with the levels of immigration two years ago, you’re not going to be happy about it now. So, if you thought two years ago the country was run by unelected European bureaucrats, well, nothing over the past two years would have changed your opinion on that. And if you were daft enough to vote for that £350m a week for the NHS lie, you’re daft enough to vote for something else next time round.”

He’s right. The fundamental issues that caused people to vote Leave have not been solved. Research by the Centre for Social Investigation concluded that the major reasons for people voting ‘Leave’ were immigration and sovereignty. Lord Ashcroft found that 49% of Leave voters ranked sovereignty as their main reason for voting ‘Leave’, with 33% opting for immigration as their main reason. This is supported by a YouGov poll from June 2016, in which 45% of Leave voters ranked sovereignty as their primary reason for voting ‘Leave’, with 26% ranking immigration top. Other data from the British Election Study and the Centre for Social Investigation backs this up. 

The problem for Remainers is this: neither of these issues have been resolved in any way since 2016.

Due to the nature of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, Britain will remain in the EU’s institutions until at least 2020, meaning any referendum held prior to that date will be held in the context of Britain still sharing sovereignty with the EU and still operating a form of freedom of movement. Not only that, but Remainers have not yet articulated an alternative political programme that satisfies these critiques of the EU – nor do they have an ideological vision that motivates a competing group of voters. The Remain campaign’s position for the past two years can be summed up in one word: “stop”. And that is not a sustainable basis for a campaign that wants to overturn the biggest exercise in British mass democracy since 1975. 

The reasons that people voted Leave have not been addressed, and the Remain campaign has no answers to them. Why would the result be any different to 2016?

Part 2: For the Many, not the Few 

Ultimately, beyond the technical details of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, nothing has emerged that would give Leave voters a reason to vote Remain that was not already put forward by Stronger in Europe in June 2016. Economic disaster, loss of global respect, complete Conservative dominance over British life: all these reasons to vote ‘Remain’ were raised by pro-EU campaigners on the liberal centre and left in 2016. Indeed, Stronger In ran a campaign based entirely off the idea that leaving the EU would be a total disaster. Where it did make an argument for Remaining, rather than against Leaving, it simply defended the status quo as being a less risky option, and made no argument for reform or change.

But the public does want change. Life for most people in this country has gotten a lot worse since 2008, and the rise of Brexit and Corbyn have shown the desire for a radical break with the previous economic consensus. And yet, instead of challenging the dominant economic model, Stronger In embraced it.

As a consequence, the Remain campaign was disconnected from the lives of ordinary people in Britain. Bythe end of the campaign, the public saw the Remain campaign as an establishment campaign, and saw the Leave campaign as more understanding of ordinary people. And nothing has changed: a YouGov poll in August showed that voters view the new Remain campaign as even less understanding of ordinary people than Stronger In Europe.

What’s fascinating is that perceptions of the Remain campaign have actually slightly improved amongst Leave voters – 78% saw Stronger In Europe as not understanding ordinary people’s concerns, whilst 67% say the same of the new Remain campaign. But among ‘Remain’ voters, the new Remain campaign’s numbers have plummeted – by a 2pt margin, Remain voters think the new Remain campaign doesn’t understand ordinary people’s concerns. Back in 2016, Remain voters said by a 21pt margin that Stronger In Europe did understand those concerns. If the new Remain campaign can’t convince its own base, who can it convince?

Meanwhile, broadly speaking, public opinion has barely shifted in the two years since the 2016 referendum. The average of polls in the month before the 2016 vote showed both ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’ tied on 50% each; polls in October 2018, thus far, show ‘Remain’ on 53% and ‘Leave’ on 47%, a shift of only a few percentage points in two-and-a-half years. In fact, ‘Leave’ has not fallen below 47% in any month since June 2016. 

Polls consistently show that well over 80% of Remain and Leave voters have not changed their minds, and when asked by YouGov in September 2018 how they would feel if Brexit was stopped, 79% of Remain voters said ‘happy’ and 80% of Leave voters said ‘unhappy’. The divisions are as strong as they were in June 2016. To complacently insist, as many Remainers do, that Remain would win by a landslide now that people know “the facts” about Brexit is to ignore the fact that public opinion remains split right down the middle.

Given that the usual margin of error in polls is plus or minus 4pts, and that the Remain campaign started the 2016 referendum campaign polling at 52% (and won 48%), the position of Remainers is incredibly precarious even before any kind of organised campaign. A slight shift in polling – such as the sort that occurred in 2016 – or even a normal-sized error in polling could result in a simple repeat of the 2016 result. There is not much room for error.

And yet the Remain campaign has not learned from its errors. Having been led in the 2016 campaign by David Cameron, Alan Johnson and Nick Clegg, its new political leaders are Chuka Umunna, Anna Soubry, Nick Clegg (again), Tony Blair and Vince Cable – once again putting failed, unpopular centre-right politicians front and centre. Rather than advocating an alternative political programme to the Tories’ Brexit agenda (as Labour’s 2017 manifesto did), the new Remain campaign is purely defensive. Their strategy seems to consist of listing economic statistics, lecturing people about how terrible it will be if we leave the EU and defending the status quo.

In other words, their strategy, their leadership and their standing amongst the public are largely unchanged since 2016. So why would the referendum result be any different to 2016? 

Part 3: Remain and Reform 

In 2016, despite misgivings, the vast majority of the Labour Party and the political left rallied behind ‘Remain’ in the EU referendum. The Labour Party officially backed the campaign and Jeremy Corbyn toured the country promoting Labour’s “Remain and Reform” campaign (a strategy which convinced two-thirds of Labour voters to back ‘Remain’).

That will not happen next time round.

In any second EU referendum, Labour will be split 3 ways:

1. Remainers
2. People who voted ‘Remain’ in 2016 but accept the result
3. Leavers

Not only that, but we now have concrete proof that around a third of Labour voters want Brexit to happen, which we did not have before June 2016. We also know that these ‘Labour Leave’ voters are perfectly willing to walk away from the party if Labour tries to overturn their vote. YouGov polling showed that in April 2017, only 14% of Leave voters were voting Labour, a figure which rose to 24% after an election campaign in which the party committed to respecting the referendum result. Will they stick around if the party decides to campaign for their votes to be ignored?

As a result of all this, the most active and well-resourced progressive organisation in Britain (the Labour Party) will not put its full weight behind Remain, for fear of splitting the party and driving away its voters. The Remain campaign would only have the whole-hearted support of the Liberal Democrats – a party polling at just 7% of the vote. And given that a lot of Remainers’ energy has been focused on Labour, they seem to be well aware that without the full support of the Labour Party, a second Remain campaign will be much, much weaker than the first.

 

Part 4: The legitimacy problem 

The final problem Remainers face is this: as much as they try to avoid the question of legitimacy, there is no electoral mandate of any kind for a second referendum, fundamentally undermining Remainers’ claim to be demanding a “People’s Vote”. A true “People’s Vote” by definition would be one sought and demanded by the mass of the people, as expressed through the election of a government committed to holding one. But this has simply not happened. 

Parties committed to holding a second referendum (the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party) won a combined 9% of the popular vote in 2017, and just 13 seats between them. Meanwhile, parties explicitly committed to respecting the result of the referendum won 90.2% of the popular vote and 635 seats. Unlike in 2015, when the referendum was a manifesto commitment of a governing party that won an overall majority – coming hot on the heels of UKIP winning the 2014 European elections – there is no mandate from the electorate to hold a second referendum. None. Consequently, any referendum would (unless a snap election is held beforehand to obtain consent for it) have been imposed on the electorate by the establishment. Its legitimacy would be undermined from day 1, giving the Leave campaign a new argument that they did not have in 2016 – that voting Leave would be upholding British democracy and defending it against the manoeuvrings of the establishment.

 

Conclusion 

Despite a lot of energy from the Remain campaign, and plenty of mistakes and incompetence from the government, the polls show that on the question of EU membership, the public remains as split over the issue as they were in June 2016. The issues that powered the Leave vote in 2016 remain unresolved, while important sections of the ‘Remain’ coalition cannot be counted on as strongly as in 2016. And yet despite this, the new Remain campaign seems determined to repeat the mistakes of its predecessor. It has pushed unpopular, centre-right politicians to the forefront. It has focused purely on the dangers of leaving, whilst advocating no alternative programme for change. It has made its primary demand a referendum that nobody voted for. And it has failed to convince the public that it understands their concerns about the EU.  

The events of 2015-18 have shown that predicting the future is a fool’s errand. But with all of these things taken into account, it is very difficult to see a path to victory for ‘Remain’ in a second referendum. And it would certainly be foolish to pronounce, as some have done, that Remain would win in a landslide. 

Because remember: that’s what most people thought on June 23^rd 2016 as well.

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Simply the best: let’s talk about those ‘Best Prime Minister’ polls

Over the past three years, those of us who support Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party have heard more or less every criticism under the sun. Public opinion polls, and Labour’s performance in them, have been one of the many criticisms heaped upon Corbyn by the commentariat and the Labour right. Every Conservative lead has been instantly trumpeted as the final ‘proof’ of Corbyn’s unelectability, even after Corbyn turned a 25pt Conservative poll lead into a 2pt lead in the space of two months back in 2017. But even when the standard voting intention polls look fine for Labour (or even good), Corbyn’s critics always have one reliable poll question that they cite over and over again – “Who would make the best Prime Minister?”.

So let’s talk a bit about this question, and how it might not mean as much as Corbyn’s critics think. 

Background 

Since Theresa May become PM in July 2016, pollsters have begun asking this question more and more. It is now a standard feature of polls published by YouGov and Opinium, as well as occasionally being asked by other pollsters. It’s a simple enough question: pollsters ask voters to pick the person they think would make the “best” Prime Minister, asking them to pick between May and Corbyn. Most pollsters include ‘don’t know’ as an option; some add ‘neither’ or ‘none’ as another option.

So what sort of results do these polls show?

Well, in July 2016, when May became Prime Minister, here’s what the polls said on average: 

Theresa May – 52%
Jeremy Corbyn – 18%
Don’t Know/Neither – 31% 

Meanwhile, here’s the average result for September 2018: 

Theresa May – 35%
Jeremy Corbyn – 26%
Don’t Know/Neither – 39% 

The table below shows the average result for each party leader on this question since May became Prime Minister in July 2016.

So, why does this matter? 

Since Corbyn consistently polls behind May on this question, these polls are constantly cited by Corbyn’s critics as proof that Corbyn is an electoral liability, and that it is him personally that the electorate do not like. Thus, they say, if we got rid of Corbyn, Labour would skyrocket in support and be 20pts ahead in the polls.

Yet even setting aside the fact that Corbyn has shown himself to be fully capable of turning around public opinion (between April and June 2017, his standing in the ‘best PM’ polls improved by 20pts), this argument is weak. Here's why.

Are pollsters really asking the right question? 

All of the various poll companies have a slightly different way of asking the ‘best PM’ question:

• YouGov, Survation and Lord Ashcroft ask: “Which of the following do you think would make the best Prime Minister?”
• Opinium ask: “Which, if any, of the following people do you think would be the best Prime Minister?”
• Ipsos MORI ask: “Who do you think would make the most capable Prime Minister?”
• Kantar Public ask: “Who do you think would make the best leader for Britain?”
• And finally, BMG Research ask: “Who would you prefer to see as the next Prime Minister?”

There is a notable exception in that list: uniquely, BMG Research asks voters to tell them who they want to be Prime Minister, not just who they think would be the “best” at the job. All the other pollsters ask voters to express a judgement on which party leader would perform best at the role of Prime Minister: looking the part, acting like a PM, going on all the international trips abroad, attending summits, handling diplomacy – things like that. But that’s not a value judgement - it’s not even a question about competence. 

It’s basically asking people: who do you think would be better at being Prime Minister? The person who is Prime Minister, or somebody who isn’t? The answer is pretty obvious to most people.

This difference in wording is reflected in the data. BMG consistently shows poorer results for Theresa May than either YouGov or Opinium, the only other pollsters to publish a monthly figure for 'best PM'. Sometimes BMG shows May doing 10pts worse than YouGov. That’s not just a difference in sampling or turnout weightings – that’s the consequence of asking people a different kind of question. 

When you ask voters who would make the “best” Prime Minister, more people say May. When you ask voters who they want to be Prime Minister, May’s commanding lead vanishes like a puff of smoke. That’s worth thinking about.
 

Does any of this even matter? 

The reason why Corbyn’s critics keep pointing to these polls is because they think the public will refuse to vote Labour because of the leadership, and that the question of who makes the “best” Prime Minister is very important in determining voting intention. But survey data suggests that this isn’t even true.

Following the 2017 general election, YouGov asked voters to tell them the main reason why they backed Labour or the Conservatives in the general election. 17% of Labour voters cited their support of Jeremy Corbyn or their opposition to Theresa May as a reason. Meanwhile, 19% of Conservatives cited their support of Theresa May or their opposition to Corbyn as a reason.

In other words, for over 80% of the two major parties’ voters, the merits or weaknesses of the party leaders were less important than issues like education, Brexit or policy generally. And this remains the case today. In a recent YouGov poll, just 7% of voters said that “Which party's leader would make the best Prime Minister” was the most important issue in deciding their vote. To over 90% of voters (and over 95% of Labour voters) there are much more important things on their mind when they go to the polling station.

So in the end, whilst it’s interesting to note the differences between BMG’s polling and YouGov’s polling, to most voters the question of who makes the “best” Prime Minister is pretty unimportant. If Corbyn’s critics want to become relevant in the Labour Party again, they really need to stop obsessing over opinion polls and focus on developing an actual policy programme – such as Corbyn’s promise to nationalise the water industry, a policy which one poll suggests is backed by 59% of the British public. That’s one poll that you won't hear about from Corbyn's critics.

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