United Kingdom Referendum on European Union Membership

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Campaigns suspended following the attempted (let us hope this remains the correct prefix) murder of Batley & Spen MP Jo Cox in what currently sounds like an act of far right political violence.

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Campaigns suspended following the attempted (let us hope this remains the correct prefix) murder of Batley & Spen MP Jo Cox in what currently sounds like an act of far right political violence.

It does not remain the correct prefix.

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Gow was the last sitting MP in Britain to be murdered (he was killed by the IRA in 1990). But two MPs have had narrow escapes; Nigel Jones (LDem, Cheltenham; now a Peer) was nearly killed by a severely mentally ill man with a personal grudge in 2000 (his constituency assistant died saving him) and Stephen Timms (still the Labour MP for East Ham) was stabbed by an extreme Islamist in 2010. Both of those attacks, like this one, happened when the MPs were holding constituency surgeries.

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It's the same article he always writes.

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Some unsafe assumptions there I think.

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The turnout question is a fascinating one because no one really knows at all what to expect. Outside the small dedicated cores on either side the sort of enthusiasm that permeates during a General Election (and which was absolutely palpable during the Scottish referendum) is not present. Normally this would automatically mean a sub-50 turnout, but against that there is also clearly a widespread understanding that the vote is Important. This means that, and really unusually for Britain, a lot of people will be voting without enthusiasm (myself included). So the question then becomes: how many? Neither campaign knows because its pretty clear that neither have a great handle on things. The pollsters don't know because they never do (not even in a GE).

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There's a decent chance of disproportionately high (i.e. compared to normal) turnouts in university districts.

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...though be careful not to treat that sort of thing as anything other than a bit of fun. British poll internals (even when aggregated) are not particularly reliable at the best of times.

Having said that the striking thing (assuming an unrealistic level of accuracy) is actually the relative uniformity, particularly when generational-related variables are ignored. Which perhaps isn't that shocking on an issue as 'unusual' as this one.

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There is still every possibility that the polls are completely wrong. Referendums are hard enough to poll as it is, especially one that would seem to be falling completely outside of traditional party lines, meaning party loyalty is not much use as an indicator of how people might vote.

Correct. And because they're basically incompetent and rely on some very very dated assumptions about social structure, polling companies here are only as comparatively 'accurate' in elections as they are because they mess around very heavily based on partisan habits of respondents etc. Which just about works, almost, for actual elections. Will it for a referendum when partisanship really isn't a massive factor?

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And of course they haven't even been counted yet (information gained from the verification process would be limited and unreliable. And, yes, quite illegal to disclose). I suspect we're going to be hearing a lot of dubious claims and rumours of questionable repute over the next few days.

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and is replaced by Johnson, who probably calls a quick "khaki" general election.

Thanks to a very stupid law passed by this government during its first term it is no longer so easy to call a snap election. It would be necessary to persuade the opposition parties to agree to a dissolution of parliament. Or to repeal the relevant act. By which term the moment (if there even were one) could easily be gone. Particularly as the electorate has traditionally not taken kindly to snap elections.

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Leave percentage in all polls published since the 16th, newest first:

44% - Survation
44% - YouGov
46% - ORB*
42% - Survation
43% - YouGov
44% - Opinium

_{*Much smaller undecided proportion than other surveys.}

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I've been told by many canvassers and local activist that around 70% of the households here in Plymouth are voting Leave.

Though a massive figure like that may just indicate that the canvassing data is dodgy.

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Sunderland also has the Nissan works at Washington so who knows. Admittedly not everyone who works there lives in the city, but it's worth bearing in mind.

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Updated:

43% - TNS
45% - Opinium
44% - Survation
44% - YouGov
46% - ORB*
42% - Survation
43% - YouGov
44% - Opinium

_{*Much smaller undecided proportion than other surveys.}

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Ipsos-MORI's final poll is 52 R 48 L. Not sure what the figures are when undecideds are included so can't include in the table.

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Typo

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Whisper it quietly but there's actually a chance that a vote to leave the EU would not ultimately result in Britain leaving (i.e. if the terms negotiated were not popular, etc). The political consequences - especially within the Conservative Party - would be something else of course, Jesus.

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Trust me, this is worse than the independence referendum was.  At least that wasn't just a bunch of Tories trying to scare people and talk a lot about immigration...

The tone has been infinitely nastier, but the divisions created (if any have been created at all) less profound. Which, when you think about it, makes sense. Partly because (except for a loud minority) the issue is not really a fundamental one, but also because the nastiness is a clear product of existing tensions (esp. those bottled up within the Conservative Party for a decade). Surveys show that the referendum itself is not popular, which wasn't the case in Scotland by the end.

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low turnout and extremely narrow margin could make the referendum decision less stark and give rise to reason for Parliament to make it owns mind on the issue.

In that event the Tory Party would still look like this for about a decade though:

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Be careful about turnout rumours; except in very general terms they're wrong more often than they're right.

But I think we can be sure there's been a good turnout at least.

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Leave EU also has it 52 48 for remain

Who did the work, any indication of methods etc?

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Don't uncritically swallow every single rumour you hear. Unless you want an even longer night than...

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Look, most of the rumours swirling around will be of dubious veracity. That's always the way even with elections, let alone this mad thing. You won't be getting any solid numbers for a while yet and at first not many. Calm down.

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Most postal votes are cast by pensioners. Though also note at this stage they won't actually have counted many and that early estimates from counts are wrong.

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All 'expectations' are based on very dubious statistical modeling: you should not read much into them either way.