The poll was conducted by and among Tories in a small area of the UK known to be sympathetic to quitting the EU
Today’s Daily Express claims that 80 per cent of British people want to quit the EU.
In what it calls the ‘biggest vote on this country’s ties to Brussels for 40 years’, the paper cites a poll which says that 11,706 out of 14,581 people voted to leave. The Express goes on to claim that the ‘overwhelming’ result boosts its own crusade to get Britain out of Europe.
Yet even the most cursory examination of the polling method used by the paper reveals the results to be skewed to the point of discredit.
The poll was organised by Conservative MPs Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone and Conservative candidate Tom Purslove, and was conducted across their three constituencies in North Northamptonshire – Wellingborough, Kettering and Corby and East Northamptonshire.
In other words, this was a poll of Tories in one section of the country: the three in question are right-wing Tories who organised a poll among their own voters. This isn’t representative, as the Express claims.
In the East Midlands, where the constituencies are situated, UKIP received 32.9 percent of the votes in May’s European elections. Furthermore, UKIP and the Tories are closely aligned in this area.
UKIP have made several attempts to poach Mr Hollobone; in September they delayed selecting a candidate for Kettering because they were sure they could convince him to defect.
Outgoing local party chairman Jonathan Bullock said that ‘his views are exactly those of UKIP, they are not those of David Cameron’. Hollobone refuses to meet with constituents who wear a burqa or niqab, and has attempted to pass a Face Coverings (Prohibition) bill.
Peter Bone, meanwhile, wrote in an editorial for The Guardian in which he claimed that the sole reason he hadn’t defected to UKIP was because only Cameron could deliver a referendum on the EU.
And Tom Pursglove wrote last April for Conservative Home that:
“The British people have been denied their say on our membership of the European Union since 1975. When I am out knocking on doors in Corby and East Northamptonshire as part of my Listening Campaign, people regularly tell me that it is about time they had the chance to have their say.
“It is for that reason that Peter Bone MP, Philip Hollobone MP and I, as the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Corby and East Northamptonshire, are today launching a North Northamptonshire wide In-Out EU Referendum”.
So this ‘historic’ poll was conducted among people that the three MPs already knew were sympathetic to their aims and likely to give them the answer they wanted. Even today Bone admitted that, across the country, votes for an exit would ‘not [be] on the scale we have seen in North Northamptonshire’.
This is not to say that there is not a significant number of voters who want to quit the EU. The figures shift constantly, but tend to be roughly split down the middle. A Populus poll last April showed that 35 per cent of those surveyed would vote to stay and 32 per cent to leave.
An Ipsos Mori poll conducted in October indicated the highest level of British support for EU membership since 1991, with 56 per cent voting to stay in.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
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118 Responses to “80 per cent of Britons want to leave the EU, says the Express. Except they don’t”
Guest
So you agree with me, right, there’s a massive web of treaties.
You despair because of that? I see.
EFTA members get access only to the EU’s market, not their further trade treaties.
Guest
Keep screaming that other views are “brainwashing”, as you try and censor other views, as you demand that I believe like you do.
That you think Britain will be, what, nuked if we don’t stop the 99% crossing borders shows your fanaticism, as you blame the EU and the Other for everything.
NHS – The domestic “re-organisation” and cuts,
Councils – Domestic funding cuts.
Rising Debt – Domestic Austerity
Etc.
Nope, in your world it’s because we allow the 99% to cross borders and we have far, far too much trade for you, as you demand the UK sails off across the ocean.
Your saying that your “common sense” calls for smashing the UK economy because of your denial of right-wing economics failure is telling. You’re trying to make the UK into a basket case, no doubt for personal profit.
Guest
Keep trying to excuse your hate by blaming others. That you call a fact “dismissive and patronizing”, as you highlight something far, far milder that what you’d do, I get your point precisely.
You are happy to hate the West, as you call for murdering tens of millions of people, the vast vast majority of who are perfectly peaceful. Nope, you gotta behave like the savage you are and demand eradication.
Guest
Ah right, so you say that your lies are the only way out of the lies, and I “should know” that only your views are acceptable, as you fight against British democracy.
Italy, Spain and Ireland are doing better than the UK, as you say that trade barriers and tariffs help an isolated nation trade, as you try and handwave away the effects you call for, and demand I be like you, leeching off other people’s lives.
How dare so many people not hate the UK like you, as you accuse others of being a nancy like you, since you have such a detailed insight into it, as you attack the UK.
Guest
No, the dead meat you want of anyone who does nor bow down to you isn’t the same thing at all, as you throw coffee into people’s faces, as you claim an isolated UK would magically be okay,
Ireland is far better off than the UK, showing your aim of smashing the UK, as you deny our history as part of Europe, and show your hate for it all – Europe includes the UK, after all, factually – you hence hate the UK.
You’re showing a lead in being a hater, nothing more.