On behalf of the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, Survation conducted a new EU Referendum Poll of 10,015 people online across the UK (including Northern Ireland), between 30th November and 3rd December. Full data tables are available here.

EU Referendum Poll Question

On the question ‘Imagine there was a referendum today with the question “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?” How would you vote?’ the headline results were as follows:

• Remain a member of the European Union – 40% (-2)
• Leave the European Union – 42% (+2)
• Undecided – 18% (nc)

Voting Intention Trends

The graphic above shows changes since the last Survation poll on 16-17th November. All EU referendum poll results since September are shown in the chart below for comparison.

This month’s poll shows a small rise for “Leave” putting them narrowly back ahead, but with all our polls since September showing both sides within margin of error, the race clearly remains very tight. With the ongoing debate over the government’s rejection of the House of Lords proposal to extend the franchise to 16-17 year-olds, it is worth noting that young people 18-34 are considerably more likely to vote to remain (53%) than those aged 55+ (33%). Conservative voters on balance narrowly break in favour of leaving (44% vs 38% to remain), whilst Labour voters are more decisively in favour of remaining (56% vs 29% to leave).

Reasons for Vote?

Of those currently planning to vote to leave, a third (34%) would consider switching their vote based on the outcome of the renegotiation, along with 29% of those currently planning to remain. Together with the 18% of likely voters who remain undecided, this shows that Cameron’s progress in his renegotiations will likely be decisive to the result one way or the other.

Looking at what is affecting people’s vote, 43.5% of undecided voters said that the current migrant crisis was making them “more likely to vote to leave the European Union”, compared with only 7% who said “less likely” and 23% who said it would have “no effect” on their vote. On the related issue of free movement, only 18% believe that “David Cameron and other EU leaders made the correct decision in signing an agreement with Turkey to allow its citizens visa-free travel in Europe”, compared with 59% who thought that was the wrong decision.

Looking at the arguments for leaving or remaining that voters find most convincing, similar themes emerge as to when we have previously polled this topic. The most persuasive argument in favour of leaving was again considered to be the ability to “set our own immigration policy”, ranked in the top three arguments by 62% of voters. This was followed by arguments over cost “Leaving would save the UK money” (47%) and sovereignty “the UK can make its own laws and control its destiny” (45%). All other arguments for leaving were placed in the top three by under 25% of voters.

Arguments for remaining were more varied, with “The UK would lose 3 million jobs if it left the EU” ranked in the top three by 41% of voters, followed by “uncertainty of what leaving the EU would mean” at 36% and “Leaving the EU would still mean being affected by EU decisions, but with no say in how they are made” at 33%. Restrictions on free movement for British citizens, the views of British businesses and diminished influence on the world stage all also were placed in the top three reasons by 30% or more of those polled.