YouGov poll on the draft EU renegotiations
Tomorrow's Times has a YouGov poll on the EU, conducted after the announcement of the draft renegotiation proposals. Topline referendum voting intentions are REMAIN 36%(-2), LEAVE 45%(+3), DK/WNV 19%. While the changes since YouGov's last poll a week ago aren't huge, since summer YouGov's referendum polls have tended to show the race neck-and-neck, so today's nine point lead for leave is a significant departure, and the largest YouGov have shown since 2014. The Times's story is here and the YouGov tabs are here.
Asked about the details of the draft renegotiation (the emergency brake, child benefit changes, the "red card" and so on) most people were broadly supportive. However, these things are more than just the sum of their parts, and overall the draft agreement is seen as a bad deal for Britain by 46%, with 22% saying it's a good deal. A majority of respondents said they thought the deal did not go far enough (17% thought it was about right, 4% too far) and 50% thought the deal represented little or no real change. In short, the public's reaction seems to be "nice as far as it goes...but not nearly enough".
The poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday so in the context of some very negative press coverage. To some degree this may be a short term reaction based upon that, and we may see things revert back to the neck-and-neck position as the impact fades. Indeed, when people were asked in the poll how they would vote if Cameron managed to secure the draft deal at the EU meeting in February the LEAVE lead dropped back to three points, far more typical for YouGov's polling. We shall see.
(On other matters, the Daily Express have tragically got their front page headline as the latest results from an open-access voodoo-poll on their own website. I really can't be bothered to rehearse my usual rant, so here's one I prepared earlier)
