Latest ICM and Ipsos MORI polls
ICM and Ipsos MORI both published their latest voting intention figures last week. Topline voting intentions were
Ipsos MORI/Standard - CON 39%(+2), LAB 42%(+3), LDEM 9%(nc) ICM/Guardian - CON 41%, LAB 41%, LDEM 7%
Fieldwork for MORI was over last weekend, changes are from November. The ICM poll was part of a larger than usual sample of 5000, conducted between the 10th and 19th of January. I have not included changes since the previous ICM poll, as this one was actually partially conducted before ICM's last poll. Full tabs are here for MORI, and here for ICM.
ICM also asked some questions about a second EU referendum. Asked how people would vote in a second referendum 45% said they would vote to Remain, 43% to Leave. These figures are broadly typical of most recent polls asking about a second referendum, which tend to show a very small lead for Remain. As in most other cases this is not really due to people changing their minds (the number of Leave voters switching to Remain is pretty much cancelled out by Remain voters switching to Leave), but down to people who did not vote in 2016 disproportionately claiming they would now vote Remain. The referendum question in this poll was not weighted or filtered by likelihood to vote.
ICM found 47% of people agreeing with a a statement that "I think the public should have the chance to take a final decision on whether or not to leave the EU in another referendum when the outcome of the negotiation is known?". The Guardian have strangely written this up as a rise in Labour support for a second referendum, when ICM don't appear to have ever asked this question before to compare it to. As all regular readers will know, how you ask a question can produce very different results and questions on a second referendum seem to show particular variation depending on how the question was asked (see an example here from Lord Ashcroft, asking the question in four different ways). In this case the question was asked as an agree/disagree structure (a question format that tends to produce a skew in favour of the statement), and characterised it in terms of "giving the public the chance to take a final decision".
My guess is that the higher support for a second referendum here may well be down to wording rather than a change in support, though as ever, we'll only really know when we see repeats of questions that have been asked in the past.
Turning to other questions in the MORI poll, they asked a question on whether Donald Trump should be invited to Prince Harry's wedding. Asked straight, 23% of people thought that he should, 69% that he should not. Half the sample saw an alternate question asking about inviting both Donald Trump *and* Barack Obama - this produced a slightly less negative response with 39% in favour, but still 54% against.
