Comment

Live Together, Vote Together? Comparing Within Household Voting in the EU Referendum and in the 2015 General Election

8 December 2017

Voting patterns are usually analysed using survey data obtained by interviewing individual respondents. Relatively little attention has been paid to the role that within-household relationships have on how people vote. However, the Understanding Society survey undertaken by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex interviews all members of the households […]



Has There Been A Swing Against Brexit?

18 October 2017

Something of a flutter was created last week by the latest reading on attitudes towards Brexit from YouGov for The Times. Ever since the EU referendum last year, the company has regularly been asking its respondents, ‘In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union?’. In the […]


Has the Election Seen a Change in Attitudes towards Brexit?

7 July 2017

Far from securing the landslide that she felt would strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations, the general election saw Theresa May’s majority disappear entirely. This has inevitably led some to claim that the outcome represents a rejection of her vision of a ‘hard’ Brexit, and thus is indicative of a change of public mood. […]


Did the EU Referendum Bring a Different Kind of Voter to the Polls?

28 June 2017

It has been a long time a-coming, but the publication today of the latest British Social Attitudes report means that a significant and unique source of evidence on who did and who did not vote in the EU referendum has now finally been unveiled. Turnout was relatively high in the EU referendum. At 72%, it […]


A Brexit Election After All?

7 June 2017

This was meant to be the Brexit election. In calling tomorrow’s ballot the Prime Minister indicated that she was seeking to strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations by securing a significantly larger majority than her party had in the last parliament, thereby providing her with some insulation against the risk that the House of […]


Has Labour’s Rise Anything to do with Brexit?

18 May 2017

Until now, at least, it has not received a great deal of attention, but quietly Labour’s position in the opinion polls has strengthened during the course of the election campaign so far. In seven polls conducted in the three days immediately following the Prime Minister’s announcement on 18 April that she wished to hold an […]


A Brexit Election?

29 April 2017

Mrs May has seemingly called the election on 8 June in order to attempt to secure a mandate for her vision of Brexit. She anticipates that if she has a significantly larger majority in the House of Commons than she enjoys now her hand will be strengthened in the forthcoming negotiations with the EU. Whether […]


Brexit: A Question of Relative Priorities?

10 April 2017

Two polls published during the course of the last few days have approached the question of what kind of Brexit voters would like very differently. At first glance, they also appear to have produced two very different sets of results. But on closer inspection they may be thought to point in much the same direction. […]


What Do Voters in Scotland Want from Brexit?

30 March 2017

Scotland voted very differently from the rest of Britain in the EU referendum. It backed the view of the SNP and the Scottish Government that the UK should remain in the EU by no less than 62% to 38%, whereas the UK as a whole voted by 52% to 48% in favour of leaving. In the […]


Filter by