No, there are not 23% Re-Leavers.
Sometimes polling can be a form of propaganda. This is the case for the poll carried out by YouGov which seems to suggest that a large majority of people, a stunning 68%, now support Brexit. It would seem that most Remainers have had a change of heart, as Kenneth Clarke put it colourfully, seen the light on the road to Damascus and have now become re-leavers.
Not quite. Prima facie, it is hard to believe that such a big shift would have occurred on such a short space of time. Leave and Remain are choices that are closely tied to personal identity and attitudes such as openness and being comfortable with ethnic and viewpoint diversity (Remain) or support of the death penalty and preferring more ethnic and moral homogeneity (Leave). For this reason, I argued earlier, we should not expect to see Bregret. Indeed, subsequent polls for Leave and Remain have shown very stable positions with only small movements. For the same reason, we should be skeptical of thinking there is now a sudden surge in people supporting Leave.
So what explains this poll?
First off, the poll has methodological flaws. The phrasing of the positions is terrible. As in, if you were a sociology student and designed a poll like this, your lecturer would be right to give you a failing mark. When I learned how to design surveys, my lecturer said that rule #1 of designing surveys is: do not make the options complex such as “I think x and y”, or even worse "I supported x then and now support y". If someone ticks this box, you have no way of knowing whether the person ticking it thinks x, y or both. Indeed, the respondent may believe x, and a bit of y, or mainly y and a bit of x. There is no way to know. Now consider the options:
- I support Britain leaving the EU and the British government should ensure that Britain does leave the EU (45%)
- I did not support Britain leaving the EU but now the British people have voted to leave the government have a duty to carry out their wishes and leave (23%)
- I do not support Britain leaving the EU and the government should ignore the result of the referendum or should seek to overturn it (22%)
Note the subtle “I did not” versus “I do not”. What if people answering (2) still do not support it, but think it’s inevitable, just like if an asteroid were to hurl into space to Earth, and we’d all be killed, but no government was able to stop it. Then they might think: I still don’t like this whole asteroid killing us off idea, but it’s going to happen. Better as well resign to it, and make the best of the time left. Are we going to call such people “re-asteroiders”, who now believe the asteroid ought to hit the Earth?
A slightly less exotic example: in World War II, Belgium quickly capitulated to the German army, and in most households there was, according to my grandparents, a sense that this was now inevitable, and that one needed to get on with life. Did this suddenly mean that everyone had become a fan of the Third Reich? No, but they were just resigned to what was perceived to be a bad, but inevitable state of affairs (very few people were active in the resistance).
Second, notice how YouGov is using the Tory phrase 'The British people have voted to leave". This is a propagandistic way of phrasing things. A slight majority of those British people who voted in the Referendum voted to Leave, and because no threshold is set, it is interpreted as a vote to Leave.
Here is what an anonymous Remainer who was part of the sample group said (I quote with his permission). He voted for option 2 (although he cannot remember for sure whether he picked 2 or 3), and thus would be categorized as a "re-leaver"
I do think that having fucked up so massively in holding the referendum without a clear plan, they have a responsibility to plan for brexit and show just how much of a clusterfuck it is going to be, and then I hope we can have a say and vote it down.
Unfortunately, the poll just had 3 options (next to "not sure", which does not cover his reasons either). But these are not the words of a Re-Leaver. By the way, why was there no option that says "I supported Britain leaving the EU, but I now see what a mistake it is and I now think the government have a duty to stop Brexit from happening"? It is the mirror of option 2 and should be included.
It's also important to keep in mind that no British party, not even the LibDems (a missed opportunity, as I stipulate here) are saying the Referendum can, and ought, to be overturned. Because the political establishment are following May's narrative, the idea of the UK remaining in the EU is no longer a live option. This poll is not evidence of real shift in opinion or enthusiasm for leave by former remainers. The apparent apathy is fed by a sense of inevitability.
