Half of Britons – 48 per cent – support holding another EU referendum in the next five years, according to a new opinion poll by Ipsos. This figure includes one-fifth of Reform voters, which suggests that either they think it would be a chance to “tell them again”, or that they would accept a different outcome, if that was what their fellow citizens decided.
One of the findings of the survey that was reported earlier this week is that, among likely voters in a future referendum, 61 per cent would vote to rejoin and 39 per cent would vote to stay out.
This is the context in which The Independent has launched its campaign, Europe: The Way Back, to explore what kind of closer relationship Britain could have with the EU.
But what do these survey findings mean? Do people really want the distraction and division of another referendum, and if they do, what would be the terms of membership or associate membership to be put to the vote?
One pair of questions in the Ipsos survey illustrates perfectly the problem of interpreting answers to opinion-poll questions.
Supporters of Britain rejoining the EU will be cheered by the 53 per cent of respondents who agreed that “Britain should allow EU citizens to come and live and work in Britain in return for improved access to the EU single market”. Only 31 per cent supported an opposing statement, that “Britain should stop EU citizens coming to live and work in Britain with its new immigration rules, even if that restricts Britain’s access to the EU single market”.
But Ipsos also asked respondents to choose between differently worded options: 38 per cent agreed that “it is beneficial for Britain to have a closer relationship with the EU, even if it means that the government does not have total control over the number of people who come to Britain”, whereas 52 per cent agreed that “the government should have total control over the number of people who come to Britain, even if this means a more limited relationship with the EU”.
The different question wording flipped a clear majority in favour of free movement to a clear majority against. Given that free movement of people is one of the key conditions of EU membership, it suggests that the 61 per cent support for “rejoin” in principle is soft.
One of the intriguing questions in the poll asked how likely people were to consider voting for each of the parties at the next general election. Only 31 per cent said that they were likely to “consider” voting Labour.
But when respondents were asked how likely they were to consider voting Labour if the party promised an EU referendum in its manifesto, that number went up to 45 per cent.
There are problems with this kind of opinion-poll question, which asks people to predict their behaviour in a hypothetical situation, but the direction of the effect is clear. The poll suggests that people currently intending to vote for all other parties – Conservatives and Reform as well as the Liberal Democrats and Greens – say they would be more likely to “consider” voting Labour if it promised another referendum.
This finding will strengthen the hand of those in the Labour Party, such as Wes Streeting, the former health secretary, who say that the party should think about putting a promise to rejoin the EU in its manifesto for the next election.
The poll was commissioned by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, and UK in a Changing Europe, a non-aligned think tank devoted to exploring relations between Britain and the EU after Brexit. It was carried out by Ipsos, one of the leading market research companies, who interviewed 2,245 British adults last month.
