Have Brexit voters changed their minds? Six weeks after the momentous EU referendum, a new poll over 6,000 Brits reveals a surprising twist
A new poll launched on August 1st surveyed more than 6,000 British residents on whether they had “Bregret”.
A week after the vote, a similar poll revealed a strong case of buyers’ remorse for up to 7 per cent of those who voted for a Brexit, but more than a month and a half later, this study by KIS Finance revealed that most people would still vote the same way if they could do it over.
48.3 per cent still support Remain, and 44.43 per cent continue to back Leave.
Of those who would swap the way they voted in June, more would now support Leave rather than Remain. Those who didn’t actually vote in June tend to lean towards voting to Remain than Leave.
“We didn’t want to know how people would vote in a new Referendum, but how opinions might have changed over recent weeks: have any of those who voted to leave the EU now changed their minds, and have some of those who chose to remain now decided against it?” says KIS marketing consultant Alan Andrews.
This poll spurred a lot of debate, suggesting just how divisive the EU referendum still is now as it was pre-vote.
“The UK didn’t vote to leave the EU. A small majority of those that voted (or were allowed to vote) voted in an advisory referendum to inform our Sovereign Parliament in its deliberations,” states Richard Barrington, a controversial commenter.
According to Barrington, millions were excluded from the vote and millions more misinformed by “right-wing press barons and pornographers.”
“The referendum was an event in a democratic process and in our representative democracy Parliament is Supreme not the mob,” he asserts.
A firm “Leave” supporter, Peter Cambridge, is surprised that theLeave vote wasn’t massively more than 52 per cent. “I voted Leave and would vote Leave again,” he says.
For Cambridge, concerns over UK’s sovereignty was a huge issue, fearing that remaining in the EU would lead the UK to “become a ‘district’ of the EU political superstate.”
Other commenters echoed his sentiment over the government’s Remain campaign, seeing their famously costly marketing exercise as manipulative.
“I was sickened by our own government’s attempts to bully the voters to remain,” Cambridge adds. “The doom-mongering about the economic disaster that would befall us was truly patronising and in the end I just could not believe what I was being told would happen by the Remain campaign.”
Considering the volatility in the markets following the referendum, the few who regretted their Brexit vote would switch if they could.
“I voted to leave but after seeing what is happening to the economy, and bearing in mind article 50 has not been triggered yet, I would try to reverse that trend by voting remain,” according to Bregretful commenter, Keith.
On the most part, the most vocal on the forum mirrored the 52 per cent who voted to leave on June 23rd. Like every poll, survey, debate and forum on the topic, there is no hard line with this contentious issue.
Perhaps, as one cynical commenter summarises, in this situation “the loudest voice wins.”
