Political

Revoking Article 50 (still) very popular with Remain voters

European referendum ballot paper

I’ve covered before the popularity of the idea of revoking Article 50 with Remain voters, both evidenced by the 6 million plus petition earlier this year and more recent polling evidence.

But what about more recently? It’s rapidly becoming conventional wisdom that the policy is unpopular and damaging the Liberal Democrats in the general election. But although conventional wisdom is indeed sometimes wise, it also is rather prone to getting very detached from the evidence, as the first Corbyn-Johnson TV debate showed.

So let’s look at the recent (24-26 November) polling by YouGov:

Imagine that after the General Election, the outcome of Brexit was… Revoking Article 50, and remaining in the EU.

Would you consider this to be…

A very good/fairly good outcome: 66% Remainers (7% Leavers)
An acceptable compromise: 10% Remainers (5% Leavers)
A fairly/very bad outcome: 14% Remainers (80% Leavers)

The fairly/very bad outcome figure is 12% for Labour Remainers and higher, though still only 25%, for Conservative Remainers.

This looks to be another myth about the Liberal Democrats in the making.

5 responses to “Revoking Article 50 (still) very popular with Remain voters”

  1. A myth can become believed by the majority. The more Revoke is shown as bad on the internet and it is us Lib Demmers pushing it the more we will be regarded as the baddies. This has to be combatted. How is the problem.

  2. The way the referendum result is often reported in the media is misleading. Today on the BBC web site they said that “52% of people voted to leave the EU”. That’s not true. Out of a UK population of about 60 million, 17 million voted to leave the EU. That means that 43 million did not vote to leave the EU. In other words, 28% of people voted to leave the EU but 72% did not vote to leave the EU. In my opinion 28% is not enough for a convincing mandate. I don’t think it’s fair for 28% to drag us out of the EU. To be acceptable to everyone, winners and losers, a referendum needs a super-majority.

  3. In my experience, those who profess outrage at the hypothetical revocation of Article 50 had no intention of voting Lib Dem anyway. But it is a risky electoral strategy; why not promise a further referendum AFTER revocation? My argument would be that following the 2016 referendum the government should have established its terms for leaving the EU (deal/no deal) BEFORE triggering Article 50. It put the cart before the horse.

    Revocation now wouldn’t shut the door on the majority ‘Leave’ wish of the electorate three and a half years ago, but rather make it possible to do (or decide not to do, which I think would be far more sensible) it properly.

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