New Brexit Barometer from Kantar Public reveals broad dissatisfaction with government performance in Brexit negotiations.
Kantar Public today announced the launch of a new monthly survey to track the UK’s attitudes toward Brexit in the final year of the UK’s membership of the European Union. Extended findings1 from the introductory release of the Kantar Public Brexit Barometer include:
40% of the British public say they would vote Remain if a referendum was held today, compared to 32% saying they would Leave. The increase in support for Remain may be ‘soft support’; predominantly coming from people that did not vote in the actual referendum. 30% of Referendum non-voters now support Remain compared with 7% now supporting Leave.
An increase in the proportion who think the government are handling the negotiations poorly – now at 60%, up from 55% in November 2017. There is broad agreement across Leave voters/Remain voters and those that did not vote in the referendum.
Twice as many people believe the economy will be damaged in the near term as those who anticipate economic benefits. 32% believe the economy will be weaker this time next year, while 16% (approximately 1 in 6) have confidence the economy will be stronger this time next year. Half of the public (52%) think the economy will be doing much the same as it is now.
An uptick on concern around personal financial security, with 1 in 4 (26%) believing their job is less safe than one year ago (compared with 21% in February). 1 in 3 (35%) also consistently report finding it harder to meet monthly household budgets vs one year ago.
A significant percentage of people believe leaving the EU will hit them personally in the pocket, making the daily things they buy more expensive. 47% (down from 53% in February).
Kantar’s Brexit Confidence Index2 which measures the public’s expectations for life after Brexit across a range of areas, stands at -15 improved from -22 in February 2018, implying that despite the unhappiness with negotiations and concerns about personal finance, there is a slightly lesser sense of foreboding about outcomes more broadly.
Brexit isn’t high up people’s priority list: When asked to rank the relative importance of 11 major policy areas, ‘Renegotiating EU membership’ has consistently (since September 2013) been rated as the least important issue with the UK public, reinforcing the narrative that Brexit was a policy borne of political expediency within the Conservative party rather than any meaningful public demand.
Only 4% of the UK public rated ‘Renegotiating EU membership’ as their most important priority, down from an all-time peak of just 14% in July 2017.
Investing more in healthcare has ranked as the most important public policy priority consistently since September 2014.
Affordable housing remained as the second most important policy priority for the UK public in July just ahead of reducing crime.
Public interest in ‘Stricter border controls’ has decreased substantially since April 2016 and is now rated as the third least important public policy priority – only slightly ahead of ‘reducing the national debt’. This masks however the polarising nature of this debate, being a high policy priority for Leavers (40% rate it as one of their top three issues) and a very low priority for Remainers (55% rate it as one of their bottom three issues).