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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