Polls Apart: What does the British public think it wants from Brexit?

The opinion poll industry in the UK has not had the best two years. Almost exactly two years ago, it called the outcome of the Scottish independence ballot right but overstated the ‘Yes’ vote and by a statistically significant margin. In May 2015, no less than 11 separate polling companies insisted that the Conservative Party and Labour Party were tied with a ‘car crash’ hung Parliament inevitable, only for the Conservatives to have a lead of more than six points and an overall majority. Finally, and just to prove that these events come in threes, all of the last polls conducted in the EU referendum campaign pointed to a Remain victory only for Leave to emerge with a stunning 52%-48% triumph.
With that backdrop it might appear quite charitable to devote a BVCA Insight exclusively to a set of questions from a single opinion survey. Despite this, I think it is worth the faith and the effort. This is for three reasons. The first is that the poll concerned is the first to ask detailed questions about what the public thinks, wants and expects from Brexit, which, with the party conference season about to start, is clearly an important matter. The second is that the survey concerned, commissioned by Lord Ashcroft whose willingness to spend a sizeable amount of his own money on such data has made him a major figure in this realm, is exceptionally large, more than 8,000 people are included, which should make the findings unusually accurate. Third, the answers recorded are often so stark that even if the numbers are not precisely right, it is almost impossible not to accept their line of travel.
What then are the core findings of this extensive survey held during the month of August?
Brexit to be the most important issue for the UK but not them personally
When asked to name the top three issues facing “Britain as a whole” negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union on the right terms was identified by 64% of voters. This headed the list to be followed by “Getting the economy growing and creating jobs” (56%), “Improving the NHS” (47%), “Controlling immigration” (46%) and “Tackling the cost of living” (26%). There was a reasonable degree of consensus to this outcome. More “Leave” backers (71%) than “Remain” supporters (59%) agreed on the importance of Brexit, but this is not a vast difference. In a similar spirit, 74% of 2015 Conservative voters, 56% of 2015 Labour voters, 66% of 2015 Lib Dem voters, 76% of 2015 UKIP voters and 59% of 2015 SNP voters ranked Brexit in the top three topics for the country. Nor was there much diversity according to age group, social class or what UK region those surveyed lived in.
Interestingly, though, a different result emerges when the public is asked about the top three issues “facing you and your family”. “Tackling the cost of living” is catapulted from fifth to first with 56%. It is followed by “Improving the NHS” (55%), “Getting the economy growing and creating jobs” (47%), only then in fourth place comes “Negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union on the right terms” with 44%, and “Controlling immigration” is reduced to the fifth spot with 30% identifying it. A shrewd Prime Minister (which Mrs May appears to be) would conclude from this that while Brexit is a matter of enormous importance, it should not overwhelm the whole of the Government’s agenda.
The public would quite like to have its cake and eat it during the negotiations
The sample was asked whether it would consider various policy possibilities consistent or not with the referendum mandate. By a margin of 61%-39% voters believed that retaining full access to the single market would be perfectly compatible with Brexit. Indeed, those who had backed Leave were more likely (64%-36%) than those who endorsed Remain (59%-41%) to embrace the single market.
Yet the British seem to want to have their cake and eat it. By a whopping 79%-21% tally the voters insisted that allowing new foreign nationals the automatic right to live and work in the UK would be inconsistent with what the referendum had determined. By an even larger number - 81%-19% - the electorate agreed that if the UK paid anything in to the EU budget this would be at odds with a real Brexit.
Put another way, what UK voters want from the negotiated withdrawal is complete access to the single market, absolute control over future immigration and not pay a penny over to Brussels. This BVCA Insight can exclusively reveal that such a settlement is unlikely. It should, nevertheless, be noted that voters took a more benign view of what to do with EU nationals living and working in the UK as of now, with a 77%-23% split that they should be allowed to stay. That will be noted in No 10. It implies that it would be politically safe for the PM to call an ‘amnesty’ sooner rather than later.
When forced to choose, the public prefers controlling immigration to single market
In the real world, as ministers are all too aware, some choices have to be made between single market access and enhanced control over migration. When the voters were asked “Should the UK Government prioritise access to the single market or controlling immigration?” the verdict was clear, 28% said the single market, 52% picked immigration, 14% ranked them equally and 6% did not know.
When I initially saw those numbers I responded with some suspicion. It did not seem to me to be an instance of comparing apples with apples. “Access to the single market” is a relatively technical term that many people (if they are candid) do not fully understand while “controlling immigration” is a far more straightforward notion. Might the wording of the question be pushing towards one answer?
Possibly, but there are reasons to suspect otherwise. The underlying numbers are consistent with a collection of voters who comprehend the essence of the question. Those who had favoured Remain in the referendum preferred single market access by a 50%-28% margin while those who had rallied to Leave plumped for controlling immigration by an eye-watering 76%-8% total. Party affiliation was as one might expect too with 60% of 2015 Conservatives and 87% of 2015 UKIP adherents wanting to control immigration first and foremost, while Labour and SNP electors divided narrowly in favour of putting controlling immigration before single market access while the historically pro-European Liberal Democrats wanted to place more weight on the single market, not migration (by 46%-35%). All of the other demographics were logical as well. The AB social classes were more focused on the single market issue than the C1, C2, D and E categories who were much more bothered by migration. The young (those aged 18-24) wanted to preserve single market access while older citizens (65 plus) were strongly in favour of concentrating on migration. The regional division made sense too.
The only reasonable conclusion to draw, therefore, is that, despite the wording of the question, the UK public is willing to take some risks with the single market (and hence economic prosperity) as the price for restoring some degree of control over immigration. It is very hard to dispute this assertion.
What does all this mean?
We can already see what it means. The May Administration sees its central challenge over Brexit as identifying what measures would produce not only the theoretical capacity to reduce EU migration but have the practical effect of doing so in a reasonably short period of time after leaving the EU. If that remains the case, and there is no evidence of a shift in public opinion, then the most politically plausible outcome of Brexit will be the end of automatic single market access in favour of some form of free trade arrangement. Exactly what that accord may be would become the primary Brexit issue. It would hence become the central challenge for the business community, notably financial services.