Ashcroft UK referendum poll finds 65% in favour of staying in EU

Nearly two thirds of voters think the 'Remain' campaign will emerge victorious in the UK's EU June referendum, although most of them think the margin will be narrow, according to a poll conducted by Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft.

The survey of 5,000 people found 65% of respondents expect Britain to remain within the EU after the June 23 poll, while 35% think 'Leave' also known as 'Brexit', will win.

Ashcroft said opinion remained divided, but the vote was “hardening”.

“I asked respondents to place themselves on a sentiment scale, where zero meant they would definitely vote for Britain to remain in the EU, and 100 meant they would definitely vote to leave. A score of 50 meant they were completely undecided; another number meant they were leaning slightly or strongly one way or the other,” Ashcroft said.

“Several points emerge when comparing these numbers with the findings when I conducted the same exercise last December. Overall, opinion has remained broadly stable: the proportion putting themselves on the Remain side has risen two points, the proportion on the Leave side by five, and the number at exactly 50 is down."

“However, the shift in the mean score from 51.9 to 56 owes more to the growing concentration of the Leave vote at the far end of the scale. Nearly half (44%) of those placing themselves in the Leave half now give themselves a score of one hundred, meaning they are certain to vote that way, compared to just over one third (34%) five months ago.”

Ashcroft warned,, however, that with a month to go until the referendum, “these numbers are by no means set in stone”.
The survey found that just more than over six in 10 voters thought “we must have more control over our own affairs even if that means missing out on some of the benefits of co-operating with other countries”.

Seven in 10 2015 Conservative voters agreed with this, as did 85% of those on the Leave side of the scale and 94% of UKIP voters, Ashcroft said.

Most Lib Dem voters and 18-24 year-olds, by contrast, thought “we must be prepared to give away some control over our own affairs in return for getting the benefits of co-operating with other countries. SNP voters - perhaps conscious of a potential contradiction with other parts of their political outlook - were evenly divided, as were Labour voters, he added.