Business Insider has considered why polls on the referendum show a mixed picture and may or may not be reliable. Many have noted that phone polls give IN a much bigger lead than online polls. A point made in this article is that most phone polls, unlike online but like the real ballot paper do not offer an explicit “don’t know” response.
This may suggest that when confronted with the choice “don’t knows” break for IN (assuming they have taken part in the vote). This would support the much cited belief that higher turnout will favour IN and lower turnout OUT.
Turnout in the 1975 referendum, which was largely seen as a forgone conclusion by polling day, was 65%.
If you believe that crowd-sourcing produces accurate predictions (and I believe it can), the Electoral Reform Society has found the average person expects a turnout of 57%.
UK Polling Report have looked at the same research that the Business Insider. As well as the issue about prompting for “don’t know” on online polls, they also point to the well documented phenomena that different type of people answer phone or online polls. People answering online polls tend to be older and more socially-conservative.
Of course, as Lynton Crosby recently said, you shouldn’t take polls as a predictor of the final result. They should guide how you run your campaign – who you make an effort to talk to and what you say to them.
* Antony Hook was #2 on the South East European list in 2014, is the English Party's representative on the Federal Executive and produces this sites EU Referendum Roundup.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
High Fell leaflet watch (2)
No, Leave didn't win the Brexit referendum because of Northern working class voters
Two new Makerfield by-election polls gives Burnham 5 and 12 point leads
Reform under water
Geoffrey Payne
Richard Whelan
David Raw
Tom Reeve
7 Comments
I think there are many shy remainers.
Bombastic kippers (and many leftists) like to bang on about how bad the EU is, and almost act in an intimidating way, calling remainers “corporatists” or “traitors”.
Most people will not speak up, but will mark the box to remain, whilst the kippers and left have their usual bellowing contest.
The most motivated voters will be Leave, whereas Remain will depend on a significant turnout of Labour voters,will they bother to support Cameron ?
The lower the turnout the better it is for Leave.
Anthony is right of course to emphasise that is not what people think, but who actually votes that will determine the outcome of the referendum.
One problem on June 23rd (as in many elections) will be that it is much easier for many people who do not work in a regular job (retired or unemployed people for example) to vote on a Thursday, which for many people is a normal “working day”. I tried and failed when we were in coalition to get us to consider pilots of weekend voting when it might be easier for many people to vote. I pressed for us to do this in the 2014 European elections. UKIP have benefitted in particular from low turnout in our European Parliament elections. The Conservatives also generally benefit when more older/more conservative voters turn out in disproportionately higher numbers and this was a factor in their success last year. But Cameron may now have handicapped his efforts to support the REMAIN campaign by sticking with the traditional Thursday for the referendum.
Another problem is that it is the older and more settled population that is generally registered to vote. We are waiting for more analysis from the Electoral Commission in the summer, but we know now that little more than four in five of the people who should be on the voting registers in the UK are presently included on them. Younger people (disproportionately in favour of Remain) are much more likely to be excluded from the registers. The Remain campaign needs to promote voter registration and should be pushing online registration (https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote).
But above all, the REMAIN campaign needs the kind of persuasive messaging that drove people on both sides of the argument in the Scottish Independence referendum to resister and then to cast a vote.
I think it’s a mistake to think labour voters will vote to stay on mass. Much as some want to turn this into a simple Left/Right issue or as others seem to be suggesting a moral one, It’s really going to be down to individual voters. My guess is that it will be very close.
I’m not expecting a high turnout because I think a lot people are ambivalent about Europe.
Too close to call at the moment, however I think caution will play a big part on referendum day.
UKIP’s ambitions in Wales are presumably based on some reason why they are spending their money there. Neil Kinnock, former EU Commissioner, was shown (on Channel 4 News if I recall correctly) going round his previous constituency, where he had a large majority as an MP. The electorate he met did not have his depth of knowledge about the EU and mostly supported leave. One said it was a head and heart issue, from which he took comfort.
You Gov’s Peter Kellner analysed a large sample soon after the PM returned from his tour of EU capitals. Including a poll from Northern Ireland by another polling organisation the balance was close, but, unlike most actual polls, stereotypes apply.
London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland intend to vote to remain. The rest of England intends to vote to leave.
Rupert Murdoch has a problem, because he likes to back a winner. Sun readers want to leave. Times readers want to remain.
If we are making predictions I would be surprised if turnout is much above 50% or if the result is close, I would expect Remain to get around 60%.
Polls are another matter, we are already starting to see the sort of Herding that distorted last years Election. Polling firms are particularly dependent on their reputation & there is an enormous risk involved in standing out from the crowd if you are wrong. Thats why as Elections or Referenda approach its so tempting to fall in line with the majority.
Richard Underhill
I thought all the recent Welsh polls showed a fairly large lead for the “leave” campaign.