We now have an update from Matt Singh at Number Cruncher Politics on the odds of Brexit.
Despite massive shifts in two polls by The Guardian (online and telephone polls both show Brexit in the lead), and a Telegraph poll yesterday which showed the Brexiteers only trailing by 6 points, down by 15 points the week before, Singh bumped up the odds of Brexit by a mere 2 percentage points to 21%.
Is Singh misreading the polls and a sentiment change just as Nate Silver did with Donald Trump in the US?
Please consider Is Britain heading for Brexit? Latest polls.
Today we got a pair of parallel phone and online polls from ICM for the Guardian. Online showed a 3 point lead for Leave, which is pretty unremarkable. But what was really fascinating was the big swing in the phone poll, compared with a fortnight ago, to show Leave 3 points ahead there too.
Coming on the heels of yesterday’s ORB/Telegraph poll, which showed the Brexiteers only trailing by 6 points (having trailed by 15 points the week before), certainly got people talking. Is this a Leave surge on the back of last week’s migration figures?
It could be. But there are a couple of reasons to be cautious. First of all, while substantial shifts in public opinion can and do happen, polls often overshoot, even when there is an apparent reason. When the draft EU deal was published in February, we some some huge Leave leads that didn’t last. A move has to be genuine and sustained, and very often big event-driven swings (see voting intention polling after party conferences and budgets) often haven’t been.
The other complicating factor is that the fieldwork for these polls was done over a bank holiday.
The effect on the forecast is relatively small – the central projection is now 55-45 and the Brexit probability has increased a couple of points to 21%. This illustrates the whole point of a polling average – to smooth out sudden moves. But if we continue to get polls like today’s, expect the forecast to move down and the Brexit probability to move up quite a bit further.
Matt Singh’s Brexit Odds 2016-05-31
Despite major moves in three separate polls, Singh bumped up his Brexit odds a mere 2 percentage points to 21%.
If the more recent polls were given stronger weight, the odds should have jumped far more than that. Plus, there are still 12% or so undecideds.
If the undecideds have indeed started to break for Brexit, or if there was a sudden change in attitudes, then we are looking at a very close race.
I don’t know if either of those happened, but Singh doesn’t know they haven’t! Thus, 79-21 in favor of remain seems way on the high side.
This reminds me of Nate Silver ignoring polls in Indiana in favor of his own secret sauce. Unlike Indiana, I make no predictions.
Related article: Did Cameron’s Brexit Fearmongering and Lies Backfire?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Highly unlikely TPTB are going to allow the EU to disintegrate anytime soon.
FWIW,,,,http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-referendum/referendum-on-eu-membership-result
EU is said to be a CIA project. By the actions it takes I believe that. Under that scenario odds of a straight ballot are low.
But I’m pulling for EXIT. Overwhelm them at the polls!
This is NOT a good time for the “establishment” in Europe or in the USA.
Therefore, I predict a victory for Brexit.
I think the election will be stolen if it’s close…maybe that’s the basis for the odds..
That is at least an understandable explanation. But it was not one of the reasons they gave
The heart versus the wallet. Freedom versus security, says Pat Buchanan
http://buchanan.org/blog/will-always-england-125299
In his op-ed in The Washington Post, Chris Grayling, leader of the House of Commons, made the case for British withdrawal from the European Union — in terms Americans can understand.
Would you accept, Grayling asks, an American Union of North and South America, its parliament sitting in Panama, with power to impose laws on the United States, and a high court whose decisions overruled those of the U.S. Supreme Court?
Would you accept an American Union that granted all the peoples of Central and South America and Mexico the right to move to, work in, and live in any U.S. state or city, and receive all the taxpayer-provided benefits that U.S. citizens receive?
This is what we are subjected to under the EU, said Grayling.
And as you Americans would never cede your sovereignty or independence to such an overlord regime, why should we?
Downing Street’s reply: Prime Minister David Cameron says leaving the EU could cost Britain a lot of money and a loss of influence in Brussels.
The heart versus the wallet. Freedom versus security.
Of course in the end it is FREEDOM and WALLET.
Serfdom ends up with you living like ……wait for it…….a SERF.
“Downing Street’s reply: Prime Minister David Cameron says leaving the EU could cost Britain a lot of money and a loss of influence in Brussels.”
What influence does Delaware have on Washington D.C.? Why does Cameron expect to have much influence in Brussels?
How much are EU taxes going to cost, once EU tax numbers are imposed on British subjects?
The FTSE is in a bear market driven by negative mood. Elliott Wave analysis indicates the next big sell-off is starting, implying mood will get much worse over the next 4-6 weeks. Since the same negative mood drives voters in the referendum, I expect a Brexit result. The odds of Brexit are slightly better than 50% at this point.
Britain these days is not much more than a financial parasite. That cold rock in the Atlantic builds few things, most of the economy is zombified, a monarchy, really, in the twenty ifrst century? Another failed state, with only financial games to stay afloat. There will be no Brexit as it will not be allowed.
People only have the appearance of freedom and security. Once people lose faith in the system, chaos results. We are witnessing a loss of faith in the west.
The Truth About Brexit | UK’s EU Referendum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zc_q9p9iYg
This excellent video shows the huge disparity between claimed immigration numbers to the UK from government surveys(?!) versus the far more accurate National Insurance Numbers (NINOs) issuance figures, the government’s own figures. You can see why the government doesn’t use the latter.
If the UK voters don’t choose Brexit for both economic and cultural preservation reasons they will have proven themselves to be just as successfully propagandized and clueless as the US voting population.
Its funny that the REmain (and to a lesser extent the Brexit campaign)
campaign are pulling out all the stops in what seems to be acts of desperation.
first they seem to be trying to persuade people to vote for the Remain campaign
by promising WW3 if they dont, and WW3 if they do, as well
(Odd —-arent the Brexit campaign promising exactly the same?)
secondly, they purport to show how much more prosperous UK will be if it votes to stay.
and they are making other neither here nor there type arguments, like Britons wont be able to travel to and from the EU if we leave ( congratulations French airports/railways, transport workers)
they are both making arguments which dont pass the smell test.
PS it seems that those striking French airport workers, railway workers, oil refinery workers,
ports etc. have decided to weigh in on the debate to give the lie to some of these arguments
( I hope that the French workers are doing the damndest to get the UK to vote Brexit)
personally i actually remember the first referendum debate on UK membership
of the EEC (as the EU used to be called) back in 1975, and that was an altogether more seasoned and rational affair and debate.
i think it is better they call it off, and call another referendum at a later date,
i’m getting worried that i’ll lose my sanity before all this is over.
Mish… Any advice on a shelter for battered UK citizens with a pension fund? US shares? US Treasury Bond ETF?
Buy some gold, miners, and stay heavy in cash waiting for better oppoprtunities
In pounds stirling? I cannot hold any other currency in my pension account