Only a year since winning the election with a slim majority, David Cameron has effectively invited a midterm protest vote on his government with potentially disastrous consequences
If the latest polls are to be believed, the ‘Leave’ camp arguing for Britain to exit the European Union (EU) has gained ground. The most recent YouGov/Times poll published Monday night found the ‘Remain vote’ just one percentage point ahead on 43%, with Leave on 42%. A separate YouGov/GMB poll earlier that day suggested 45% favoured the UK leaving the EU, with 41% wanting to stay. A separate Observer/Opinium poll published on Sunday also found the Leave campaign ahead, by 43% to 40%.
Before last night’s questioning by an ITV studio audience, around 80% of a sample of more than 2,500 people logging on to The Times’s Red Box ‘React’ were reportedly in favour of Brexit. This did not move much after both Nigel Farage and David Cameron had spoken.
Perhaps of more concern than the recent poll movements, which are often volatile and not the most reliable indicator, is that in the three days up to June 6 political spread betting firm Sporting Index took twenty times more bets on the EU referendum than it did during the entire Scottish independence referendum campaign.
Peter Kellner, political analyst and former Chairman of YouGov, says we should not be too worried. Past referendums indicate the alternative option tends to peak two weeks prior to voting, when voters have nothing to lose, but a shift back to the status quo usually emerges on the eve of polling day.
A gambling man
All the most recent developments really confirm however is the huge gamble taken on an issue the electorate not only should not be deciding on, as comedian and pundit David Mitchell has argued, but that it never showed much interest in to begin with.
Historically, Europe has ranked fairly low on the list of British voters’ concerns. Asked what the most important issues facing the country were in the month before last year’s General Election, voters placed Europe seventh on an overall list of 13 policy issues, according to YouGov analysis. “Every time the question has been asked since the coalition came into government in 2010, two issues on the list of 13 came in the first or second spot: the economy and immigration,” the analysis said. In that particular poll, health had risen to second place for the first time.
On Europe, British voters have tended to feel indifferent or ambivalent, which is why asking them to vote on something they do not care much for could result in the UK’s accidental departure from the EU. This is a particular risk if those voters who feel neither wholly enthusiastic nor deeply cynical about our membership do not bother casting their vote.
If views have swung more to the Leave side than Remain recently, Cameron has only himself to blame. By conflating our European Union membership with feelings about immigration more generally since well before the last General Election, in an effort to temper the rise of UKIP, the Conservative Party has created an anti-European sentiment that did not previously exist.
What’s more, that same party—or rather some of it—is now asking us to vote to stay in. A party that has turned in on itself, and whose record in government since being elected in 2015 has been lamentable, with deeply unpopular proposals such as the cuts to tax credits and disability benefits being blocked by the House of Lords.
Cameron also saw his personal approval ratings fall earlier this year, to their lowest level since July 2013, below that of embattled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, according to YouGov.
Is it any wonder many people are not listening?