Another poll, another lead of ‘in’ over ‘out’ in a Euro referendum

Another day, another poll asking the public how they would vote in an in/out Euro referendum, and another lead for ‘in’ over ‘out’:

If there was a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU with the option of voting to stay in the EU or to leave it, how would you vote?

35% – to stay
32% – to leave
27% – don’t know

The recent establishment of a lead for ‘in’ predates the Clegg-Farage debates, but could still have been triggered by them given that the laying down of the debate challenge, the agreement to hold them and then the warm-up period before them all gave extra profile to the European issue in the media. Depending on how the polls pan out in the next few weeks, this may well be one of those cases where the long-term impact of a debate is rather different from its apparent immediate winner.

Note: the lead is slim in each individual poll, but the consistent pattern across several – including the two recent YouGov ones – does let a statistically rigorous conclusion be drawn.