Brexit: “Stay” Vote Firm Favorite

The New Observer
April 23, 2016

The “stay” side will win the June 23 referendum on British European Union membership—because the “leave” side has the impossible task of persuading anywhere between 5 and 12 million voters to switch sides.

These projections are based on an analysis of the 2014 European Parliament elections and the 2015 UK General Election.

 

Even though opinion polls have the “stay” and “leave” vote totals almost level (at 44 to 42 percent in favor of staying), all the polls have ignored the British public’s voting patterns of the last 24 months.

The 2014 European Parliament elections saw 11.1 million UK voters support pro-EU parties—and only 4.9 million support anti-EU parties.

In the 2015 UK General Election, 26.4 million voters supported pro-EU parties and only 3.9 million supported anti-EU parties.

During the last EU parliament elections, held on May 22, 2014, the anti-EU parties consisted of the:

United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which polled 4,376,635 votes;

An Independence from Europe party which polled 235,124 votes;

British National Party, which polled 179,694 votes;

English Democrats, which polled 126,024 votes;

No2EU party, which polled 31,757 votes;

We Demand a Referendum Now party, which polled 23,426 votes; and

Britain First, which polled 20,272 votes.

In total, this came to 4,992,932 anti-EU votes.

Against this, 11,173,279 votes were cast for parties in favor of EU membership, made up of the:

Labour Party, which polled 4,020,646 votes;

Conservative Party which polled 3,792,549 votes;

reen Party of England and Wales which polled 1,136,670 votes;

Scottish National Party which polled 389,503 votes;

Liberal Democrats which polled 1,087,633 votes;

Democratic Unionist Party which polled 131,163 votes;

Plaid Cymru which polled 111,864 votes;

Ulster Unionist Party which polled 83,438 votes;

Scottish Green Party which polled 108,305 votes;

Social Democratic and Labour Party which polled 81,594 votes;

Traditional Unionist Voice which polled 75,806 votes; and

several smaller parties who each polled 50,000 votes or less.

Based on these figures, at least 5.5 million voters have to switch their support from “pro-EU” to “anti-EU” ideologies for the “leave” vote to win on June 23.

The one factor which could of course affect this figure is turnout. In 2014, only some 34 percent of British voters bothered to vote in the EU elections.

However, a higher turnout makes the prognosis for the anti-EU parties even worse.

This is evidenced from the 2015 General Election, where some 65 percent of voters turned out. (There are currently a total of 44,722,000 (44.7 million) registered electors in the UK.)

In the General Election of May 7, 2015, pro-EU parties polled 26,438,367 (26.4 million) votes, while anti-EU parties polled 3,899,286 (3.9 million) votes.

The May 2015 “pro-EU” parties and their vote totals were made up of the:

Conservative Party which polled 11,334,576 votes;

Labour Party which polled 9,347,304 votes;

Scottish National Party which polled 1,454,436 votes;

Liberal Democrats which polled 2,415,862 votes;

Democratic Unionist Party which polled 184,260;

Plaid Cymru which polled 181,704 votes;

Social Democratic & Labour Party which polled 99,809 votes;

Ulster Unionist Party which polled 114,935 votes;

Green Party which polled 1,157,613 votes;

Alliance Party which polled 61,556 votes; and a number of smaller parties each polling less than 50,000 votes.

The anti-EU parties were represented by

UKIP which polled 3,881,099 votes;

Respect Party which polled 9,989 votes;

English Democrats which polled 6,531 votes; and the

British National Party which polled 1,667 votes.

Although the constituency-based nature of UK General Elections causes obvious distortions in election results (as opposed to the proportional representation system of European Parliament elections), it is clear that a higher turnout favors those politicians who are pro-European Union.

Based on the May 2015 General Election results, the “leave” campaign therefore has to persuade more than twelve million voters to switch sides.

There are, of course, a number of factors which could still affect these projections. Perhaps the most important of these is that the referendum will allow dissenters from all parties to switch positions without having to expressly vote for another party.

For example, a Conservative Party supporter, who might otherwise never vote UKIP, will be able to vote against EU membership.

Given that there are at least 110 Conservative Members of Parliament who have declared themselves in favor of leaving the EU—a significant proportion of the 331 MPs that party has—it can be safely assumed that a third of Conservative voters could vote for the “leave” campaign.

Based on the 2015 General Election results, this could mean that up to 3.5 million Conservative voters might vote against EU membership.

Together with the approximately 4 million definite “anti-EU” voters, this could put the final “leave” vote total as high as 7.5 million votes.

Even factoring in possible defections from the Labour Party in England’s north, this is still not enough to defeat the remaining “stay” voters—which (based once again on 2015 election results), will still number over 20 million.

It is clear therefore that turnout will be the key.

Voters who feel the strongest about the EU are the most likely to vote on June 23, which means that a lower turnout will raise the chances of the “leave” vote winning.

Even then, however, more than five million voters have to “switch” for the “leave” vote to win—and, obviously, the higher the turnout, the greater the number of voters who have to switch.

While theoretically possible, the chances of achieving such massive voter swings are regarded as highly unlikely.

These projections also do not take into account unpredictable factors such as the effect of another refugee-terrorist attack, or some other EU-related disaster occurring before polling day, which would favor the “leave” camp.

On the balance of probabilities, however, prudent observers should prepare themselves for the “stay” vote to win on June 23.