Brexit Party leads in latest poll – is it enough?

We look beneath the headlines at the challenge for Brexiteers

Nigel: Screengrab from © Brexit Party video / Chart: © Brexit Facts4EU.Org (clickable version of chart is below)

12 days to go – and is there still a mountain to climb?

Brexiteers may gain some comfort from the latest polling for the EU Parliament elections. This shows the leading pro-Brexit party at no.1, but does this mask a continuing problem?

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party comes top in the latest UK-wide polling, conducted by Opinium between 03-07 May, with a survey size of 2,000. UKIP comes in at 7th place.

There is no doubt that a new political party which was founded just four months ago has performed a miracle, in becoming the leading party in opinion polling for the EU Parliament elections which take place in 12 days time on 23 May 2019.

That said, is it enough?

Let’s look ahead to 10pm on Sunday 26 May, when the results are announced. (See below for why there is a 3-day delay.)

Clear Brexit support:

With the Brexit Party on 26% and UKIP on 4%, the two most identifiable pro-Brexit parties account for 30% of the projected vote.

Clear Remain support:

There are five parties whose policies are unequivocally to remain in the EU: the LibDems, the Greens, the SNP, Change UK – the Independent Party, and Plaid Cymru. According to the Opinium poll, these five Remain parties will garner 24% of the vote between them.

Remain support – Labour

To this figure of 24% must be added a substantial element of the Labour vote, and a smaller proportion of the Conservative vote. Approximately two-thirds of Labour voters voted to Remain, in the EU Referendum. If we were to make a giant leap, we could therefore add two-thirds of the Labour projected vote to the ‘Remain side’.

It is worth remembering that the Labour Party’s manifesto for these elections is essentially a Remain manifesto, as we demonstrated in our analysis yesterday.

Remain support – Conservative

When it comes to the Conservative vote, approximately two-thirds of supporters voted Leave. However we know that many Conservative voters have now switched to the Brexit Party for the EU elections. It therefore seems likely that the 13% support for Conservative candidates will come mostly from Remain-supporting Conservatives. We will be generous and say that one-half of the 13% for the Conservatives is still for Brexit.

What does this mean for the pro-Brexit vote?

In our thoroughly unscientific, quick-look, ‘back of a cigarette packet’ analysis, the thoughts above would translate into:-

Brexit Party: 26%
UKIP : 4%
1/3rd of Labour vote: 8%
Half of Conservative vote: 6.5%
TOTAL: 44.5%

IMPORTANT: We must stress that the above is based on wide assumptions and on current polling. In no way is it typical of our usual reporting of facts from EU and Government sources. We have done this to provoke debate. It should also be noted that the Brexit Party has had a meteoric rise in recent weeks. Their vote share may well be higher by the day of the ballot, but the interesting thing will be where those votes come from. Will they affect the overall share of the pro-Brexit vote?

Finally, the EU has delayed the results of the UK vote by 3 days – why?

Readers may be puzzled by the date we gave above for the declarations of results. In the UK we are accustomed to election results being announced during the night following a vote. In the case of the EU Parliament elections, though, the UK has to wait for the rest of the EU to catch up.

Unfortunately, voting across the rest of the EU continues for three days after the UK has voted. This means that the UK can’t announce its results until the polls have closed for all EU citizens, in the late evening of Sunday 26 May.

Observations

Why isn’t the potential Brexit vote so much higher?

Since the EU Referendum nearly three years ago, all the Project Fear claims by Remainers of an instant recession, 500,000-820,000 job losses, a flight of companies moving out of the UK and a flight of locusts moving in, it has been clear that the British people were misled on an epic scale.

At the same time, the EU has behaved exactly as we predicted they would. From Juncker’s reaction the day after the vote (“This will not be an amicable divorce”) the EU has proved itself to be vindictive and thoroughly unpleasant.

So why isn’t there now an overwhelming majority for Brexit? We have several answers to this question, but here we would just like to ask one question.

Where’s the meat?

In the last couple of weeks we have been asked by readers who support certain political parties for permission to use some of the one-page leaflets and social media tiles we’ve produced.

Why is this? If you’re manning a stall in a high street, or going door-to-door, you need a range of information to give to voters, depending on what is important to them. Where is this from the parties? One glossy leaflet saying almost nothing about Brexit just doesn’t cut it – especially when voters are so turned off by ‘traditional politics’.

We have also received emails from the people coordinating things on the ground – who do the hard work – telling us that they have never even been introduced to their local MEP candidates. They don’t know their itineraries, and they don’t know which particular messages to push. They tell us communication is extremely poor and that they are being treated like mushrooms.

Now, we’re sure that there must be shining examples of the opposite in places around the country, which we haven’t heard about. All we're saying is that the picture being presented to us is not good.

There are many highly-experienced pro-Brexit organisations like us, with the tools to help. It’s a shame we are not being used effectively by pro-Brexit parties to explain and promote the Brexit cause.

If you can help to keep us producing effective output at this important time for Brexit, the quick and secure donation options are below. Thank you.

[ Sources : Opinium ]

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Sat 11 May 2019

Something to say about this? Scroll down for reader comments

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Reader Comments 15

11. Concerned Expat , Sunday, May 12, 2019, 06:41:

To the Brexit Facts4EU team, agreed, I think there is a grave danger of complacency amongst the leavers whilst the remoanians scurry away with their plans of destruction. Definitely rallies are OK but not at the expense of other coices, a balance has to be struck in order to reach a wider audience.

12. Julie Dyson , Sunday, May 12, 2019, 08:14:

I do agree, to a certain extent. I think, like Nigel Farage, far too many Leavers just said "We've done it!" in 2016, and left it at that -- fully expecting the government of our fine democracy to uphold and carry out our wishes, as they promised to do over and over again... Ho hum.
The Remain side, conversely, got organised. The smug complacency on our side almost proved our undoing, and may yet still do so. Thankfully, certain individuals and brilliant sites such as this have kept the torch burning. In years to come, we will owe these stalwart few a huge debt of gratitude.
But please don't denigrate TBP rallies. What may seem at first glance to be little more than "preaching to the converted" is actually one of the foundation stones -- perhaps even the most important one -- of this brand new, vibrant, and vitally important, political movement. The rallies make a statement and spread the message, have a huge impact on social media, are gaining more and more mainstream media attention as TBP soars in the polls, and they help turn many of the actual attendees into fanatical grassroots activists rather than just plain voters. Nigel learnt a trick or two in the good ole US of A, and love him or hate him -- it works.
REPLY FROM BREXIT FACTS4EU.ORG - Thanks for your kind comments Julie. Please be assured that we don't denigrate the rallies, we just think they should go hand-in-hand with reaching out to those in the middle - not hard remoaners who are beyond redemption, but ordinary folk who hear nothing substantive from the big boys. There needs to be a balanced approach and there isn't. The last news item on the Brexit Party's website is dated 15th Apr - almost a month ago. That's ridiculous when we have been publishing seven days a week for over three years, with a pittance in donations compared to the funds of TBP.

13. Sydney Ashurst , Sunday, May 12, 2019, 10:12:

The converted are getting angry and will show it in voting for the Brexit Party, the only vent they have. FACTS4EU do a great job of publishing what is wrong with the EU. Unfortunately most of the media publish the doomsters prognostications.
A drubbing may induce the media to look again at why 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU.
A comment I spotted today: The European Parliamentary elections are pretty meaningless. The MEPs have no power - It is just a talk shop. A front, for the commission who alone raise legislation. What can any MEP say they have achieved in Europe other than expressing views? They can't block legislation or introduce it. The fact that they have no power is the whole point of the democratic deficit there.

14. Sydney Ashurst , Sunday, May 12, 2019, 13:25:

Following on from -The European Parliamentary elections are pretty meaningless. The MEPs have no power - It is just a talk shop. It is the groupings of the member States that have the power. The elections in France will be hard fought. Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini are now promising voters a far-right (EU rating) bloc to overhaul the EU from within. If we are forced to remain we can join a reforming group. Juncker and Co are fearful of the election outcome.

15. Ed , Saturday, May 25, 2019, 17:14:

This seems to assume that people who voted Remain are necessarily opposed to Brexit. It's the same mistake people make when they make reference to EU IN/OUT polling. That simply tells you how people would vote in a second referendum, not whether or not they actually want a second ref, or whether or not they accept the result. When you ask those sorts of questions, 'support' for Brexit, in its broadest sense, is greater than support for Remain. In this example, I doubt there are many hardcore Labour Remain voters (or Tory ones for that matter) They will have fled to the Greens or Lib-Dems, etc.

15 comments, page 2 of 2

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