In the Brexit battle, undecided voters are now strongly breaking into the Leave camp.
A new set of Guardian/ICM poll (one online and one telephone) shows Leave with a 6 point lead in each. The telephone poll is 53-47 with the percentage of undecided voters sinking to 6%.
This continues the trend I warned Matt Singh at Number Cruncher Politics about.
Singh does not dispute the numbers unlike other recent polls believed to be biased.
Leave is in the lead in a running average of the latest six polls and the latest four polls.
Please consider EU referendum: leave takes six-point lead in Guardian/ICM polls.
Support for leaving the EU is strengthening, with phone and online surveys reporting a six-point lead, according to a pair of Guardian/ICM polls.
Leave now enjoys a 53%-47% advantage once “don’t knows” are excluded, according to research conducted over the weekend, compared with a 52%-48% split reported by ICM a fortnight ago.
The figures will make grim reading for David Cameron, George Osborne and the Labour party. They follow a fortnight in which immigration became the dominant issue in the referendum campaign, with the publication of official figures showing that net migration had risen to a near-record 333,000 in 2015.
Prof John Curtice of Strathclyde University, who analyses available referendum polling data on his website whattheukthinks.org noted that after the ICM data, the running average “poll of polls” would stand at 52% for leave and 48% for remain, the first time leave has been in such a strong position.
Leave in Lead
Poll of Polls
The Guardian had a bad link for Prof John Curtice’s site. Here is the correct one: EU Referendum Poll of Polls.
The What UK Thinks: EU Poll of Polls is based on the average share of the vote for ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ in the six most recent polls of voting intentions in the EU Referendum.
The bar chart [above] shows the average of the six most recent polls, the fieldwork for which was conducted between 5 and 13 June 2016. It is based on two (online) polls from YouGov, two (one online, one phone) polls by ICM, one (online) poll by ORB, and one (online) poll by Opinium. The most recent additions are two polls, one online, one phone, conducted by ICM between 10 and 13 June.
The line graph below shows how the Poll of Polls has changed since polling based on the question that will appear on the ballot paper began in September 2015.
Fear Mongering Asininity
Taking fear mongering to a new, higher level of stupidity, European Council president Donald Tusk stated in a Bild Interview “This could in fact be the start of the process of destruction of not only the EU but also of the Western political civilization”.
Jean-Claude Juncker Calls for EU Army
The surest way to go to war is to have an army itching to fight.
Please recall that European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker Calls for EU Army.
The European Union needs its own army to help address the problem that it is not “taken entirely seriously” as an international force, the president of the European commission has said.
Jean-Claude Juncker said such a move would help the EU to persuade Russia that it was serious about defending its values in the face of the threat posed by Moscow.
However, his proposal was immediately rejected by the British government, which said that there was “no prospect” of the UK agreeing to the creation of an EU army.
Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but history shows the EU will do whatever it wants when it wants. Paper promises are not worth a damn.
Two Things
This will all come down to two things:
- How undecideds break
- Turnout
Right now, undecideds are breaking heavily towards Leave. That trend will have to continue to seal the fate, but there is no reason to believe it won’t. Moreover, it appears fear-mongering is not helping the Remain camp at all.
Recent Polls
That is how I see things. While still too close to call, things are breaking strongly for Leave. And right now, Leave is in the lead, by any reasonable slice of recent polls.
History Lesson
Matt Singh, like Nate Silver before him in the US, relies too much on history, in a political year with many surprises.
For further discussion, please see New Poll Shows Brexit With 10-Point Lead: Is it Flawed?
Finally, for those still on the fence, I offer the #1 Reason to Vote Brexit: Goldman Sachs, JPM, IMF Seek Remain.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
3. Cheating on the vote count.
“…This could in fact be the start of the process of destruction of not only the EU but also of the Western political civilization…”
He says that like it is a bad thing.
Well, it would put HIM out of a job …
LOL “He says that like it’s a BAD THING!” LOL
End EU to SAVE Western Civilization.
Hey Mish are you aware for at least the past decade lots of normal voters have been telling the pollsters the opposite of what they will vote?
I suspect the real “Brexit” numbers are much higher than honest polls can discover.
Since polls mean nothing one must assume voting means nothing as well.
This is a question of no consequence to the near totality of anyone here…although everyone loves a parrot.
What matters is the question “if voting no longer matters what type of World am I living in?” I would argue “a dictatorship.”
That does impact markets…in a very negative way actually. Already the entire State of California has had its right to vote in a primary denied.
If you think that’s bullish and time to buy…rock on brother.
There’s always a particle of truth in what orthodoxy and/or TPTB say, and when the the EU disintegrates something will have to replace the mess that results. That of course is a decentralized collection of self sufficient nations whose economies are monetarily stable do to the fact that a universal dividend has corrected the long standing scarcity of aggregate demand in ratio to costs/prices and a retail discount to prices has turned the vector of their economies toward price deflation instead of inflation and hence they have thrown off the tyranny of the business model of Finance and embraced the freedom/free flowingness of the concept of Grace as in monetary Gifting.
Today’s technology and robotics means a decentralized collection of self sufficient nations can thrive in better ways than ever before. Think about it.
Yes, but as modern economies are inherently cost inflationary…..not without the policies of a universal dividend and a cost deflationary discount to retail prices
The EU countries that are “on paper” members of NATO don’t spend anything close to what they promised they would spend on military (sorry “defense”) to actually comply with the NATO treaty. That is why no one takes them seriously. These countries all have huge deficits, huge debts, and have neglected their militaries for longer than the EU existed. Putin is supposed to believe a combined clown force under the command of a giant committee of corpulent bureaucrats is different?
The US and UK are NATO. The rest of the countries are a whining, glorified police force. That is not just my opinion, it is the opinion of the Dutch NATO General who led the “NATO” attack on Libya (when Obama was leading from behind and US/UK forces were doing most of the work).
In the Bosnia/Serbia war, EU forces were widely regarded as targets. Both the Serbs and the Bosnians were shooting at them. No one took any of them seriously until the then UK prime minister embarrassed Clinton to send in US air power.
Putin is not going to be scared of an EU army, no matter what fantasies France has. The British military is the only European force that can project power abroad. The rest of the “EU Army” is like the Jamaican bobsled team, without the spirit.
That is the problem with the EU in a nutshell. France/Belgium want to have everything and be taken seriously as a global force, but someone else (Germans, USA, UK, whomever) should pay all the costs and do any fighting. Italy doesn’t want to pay or fight, they are happy eating pasta and red wine. The Greeks are happy eating olive oil and fish — they don’t want a big government in Athens and they certainly won’t respect one in Belgium.
British citizens had better go get 2-3 more jobs so they can afford to support the grand visions of Paris / Belgium. And have more kids that grow up to be soldiers.
Don’t like that option? Brexit is the other option. Vote wisely, and evict any insubordinate member of Parliament that does not obey.
Aha!
RE: “The EU countries that are “on paper” members of NATO don’t spend anything close to what they promised they would spend on military (sorry “defense”) to actually comply with the NATO treaty.”
I didn’t say NATO should spend 3% of their GDP (later revised to 2%) — Europe said that. Europe made that promise, and they don’t even keep the 2% number.
If you give your word that you will do something, and then you don’t — people will not take you seriously. The EU has to spend 2% of GDP on defense to be taken seriously, not because of Putin or NATO or China or the little green men from Mars.
Europe has to spend 2% on defense because that is what they promised to do. If they break promises to themselves, then a promise to “protect” Eastern Europe isn’t worth a damn.
Obama drawing stupid red lines all over Syria didn’t deter Putin. Enforcing the line would (if Obama had political support for such nonsense, which of course he didn’t).
If you are an American the price that will be paid by NATO taking over all of Europe will be paid by your sons and daughters.
Thats the Plan anyway. “Give Vox Popullii no hope then give them a War.”
I would recommend taking a pass on one with Russia in Russia’s own backyard. George W Bush sacrificed his Presidency so we wouldn’t have War with Russia. I understand most people don’t understand what that means….but like I said not even elections matter anymore so you can draw your own conclusions from that.
Juncker just looks with envy at the US, where the banksters have a;ready succeeded in economically decimating large swathes of the population. To the point where their children’s only faint, remaining hope, is to voluntarily sign up for a 50-50 chance of dieing in some foreign hellhole.
Now, let’s see, how can we make all those young Greeks pay what “they owe” the banksters? What about being serving as cannon fodder for brusslocrats’ delusions of Grandeur?
I don’t believe in polls with stakes so high that it could derail the intent and goals of TPTB elite.
I believe in power and the resolve of the powerful to use backroom sleight of hand manipulation to alter the outcome of what would otherwise be their loss and a sure victory for the People via the democratic process.
Look for Big Money and Power to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
People love a horse race. Even when the winner is predetermined.
The PM can order the tide not to go out (he already issued the order).
That doesn’t mean the tide is going to comply.
He’s also got some new see-through clothes that only those in his special effete cliche can see……
But creating an illusion that the tide goes out while it remains close to shore is well within the power of the PM and those he answers to.
The vote is a distraction.
Power settles everything.
If the “leaves” win on paper the “remains” still take home the trophy.
See Greece.
How soon we forget.
@LFOldTimer
And who surrenders all their power to the megalomaniacs in control?
The dupes – as sure as an ant does to its colony.
Mao said all political power comes from a pointing gun. I must agree, that’s why the Founding Fathers wanted to make sure ordinary Americans (legally, the “militia”) would be armed, and now many politicians want to disarm the people.
“Militia” has an easy to understand legal definition some politicians would prefer that you do not know: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from the Telegraph:
“For some of us – and we do not take our cue from the Leave campaign – it has nothing to do with payments into the EU budget. Whatever the sum, it is economically trivial, worth unfettered access to a giant market.
We are deciding whether to be guided by a Commission with quasi-executive powers that operates more like the priesthood of the 13th Century papacy than a modern civil service; and whether to submit to a European Court of Justice (ECJ) that claims sweeping supremacy, with no right of appeal.”
Take back your country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/12/brexit-vote-is-about-the-supremacy-of-parliament-and-nothing-els/
Who gives a rat’s a** about this constant polling about everything? The british gov won’t exit unless THEY WANT TO.
If we’ve learned anything, it is that the people WILL NOT be listened to. If you are not in the big club, you and your opinion are nothing.
UK Parliament is not going to vote themselves out of a job — which is the net effect of the “remain” vote. Either angry voters will demonstrate the nasty bits of the Tower of London on insubordinate MPs, or the MPs will be replaced by unelected Eurocrats. Either way, Parliament loses.
Trade between England and the continent will continue either way, with or without the blessing of Brussels. Mexican drug cartels don’t have a trade agreement with the US, but seem to get their goods sold. Trade treaties are for bureaucrats, not for the people.
TOUCHE!
RE: “UK Parliament is not going to vote themselves out of a job — which is the net effect of the “remain” vote.”
I thought the house of Lords was unelected. Am I behind the times?
I think Nate Singh is wrong! (Or is his name Matt Silver?!)
Re: “… needs its own army to help address the problem that it is not “taken entirely seriously” as an international force…”, it almost sounds as if this guy wants to use the army against the people who want to vote for leaving the EU! What an incredible statement to make and what a way to word it!
Nate and Matt are probably the same person – just double tipping into the till……
Snark!
It’s a bro—
(oblique referenct to —ewis carroll)
America and the EU are moving toward police states. Immigration, terrorism, conflict is all the same game. They must make the people afraid before they can control them. We are rapidly moving toward a neofascist state in the next twenty years. This has all been planned, even the populism which is necessary to move to the neofascist state.
What America and the EU is moving towards is what awaits the entire world. City limits and national borders aren’t very good constraints on the desire for control.
The physical world likes making larger assemblies, so does nature and mankind. The physical world uses forces acting on particles, life uses behaviors based on survival to act on its environment.
Man’s problem is in not understanding which of the survival behaviors in nature are actually destructive in a civilized world. Much to his own demise.
Another really excellent article. Thanks! Lars.
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> Den 13. jun. 2016 kl. 21.20 skrev MishTalk : > > >
As someone who has already cast his vote to ‘Leave’ I can state that the economic argument for Brexit is that ceteris paribus, a move to reduce bureaucracy and state intervention tends to ensure limited resources are more efficiently allocated, resulting in a more prosperous society. I wish those on the vote ‘Leave’ side, would just refer doubters to ‘The road to Serfdom’, by the Nobel Prize winning economist F.Hayek. It was even endorsed and recommended by J.M.Keynes (who Remainers seem to adore and misinterpret.), J.Schumpeter, and even G.Orwell himself.
The EU is a socialist construct, as opposed to a Federal Construct and as any one with an ounce of common sense knows, they tend to perform less efficiently.