UK 'Brexit' Referendum on the EU

[IceAgeComing]

Every referendum that's been done in the UK that's had significant polling beforehand has seen a swing back towards the status quo on election day; "Leave" really need to have a significant poll lead going into the thing to have a good chance.  The big issue will be turnout; a July election is not usual, and most people believe that Remain voters will be less likely to turn out than Leave voters, although I think that there a more than a few soft "leaves" around that might not show up.  It'll be interesting to see if Scotland continues to have the higher turnout that it had last year in the general, or whether the close proximity to the parliamentary elections will depress things a bit - a high Scottish turnout is big for the Remain campaign since Scotland is possibly the most pro-EU bit of the UK: Northern Ireland is possibly higher but there's been no polling there so no one really knows: it'll be close though.

[IceAgeComing]

Not in any of the most recent polls I've seen - the last yougov had Labour as 30% - although that's looking at crossbreaks which honestly you can't 100% trust (not weighted, small sample sizes, etc).  He might have access to private polling on the matter; and that's something that we're never going to be able to see and confirm the veracity of.

I think that you're also missing a fourth part of the remain campaign - people on the left that see the current EU as a neoliberal entity, but think that we benefit from from being in it than we do from being outside (the economic benefits, stuff like free movement which is a good thing for internationalists, plus also some of the policies on workers rights (the WTD, minimum number of paid holidays, etc) which aren't exactly going to be bettered by future Tory governments, while they can be if we remain in the EU.  The argument is also that the EU can be reformed to work better (become more democratic, protect the interests on working class people rather than big business, perhaps also loosening state aid regs), but that reform has to come from being on the inside fighting for it rather than shouting into the wind outside.  This seems to be Corbyn's opinion on the matter and the opinion of the Labour party more broadly: I think that it also summarises the pro-EU Greens as well.  I think that its also something that lots of people in the UK believe; that the European idea is not fundamentally broken but that the current direction of the EU is a negative thing that can be changed.

I'm a pro-remain person and always have been; pretty much for the above reasons.  There's also partly some selfish reasons in there: I'm currently applying for some jobs in Europe (including some with various EU departments in Brussels) and leaving the EU would obviously make that either a lot harder or impossible - unless we retained free movement but then what's the point of leaving if you're going to ignore the primary issue of the campaign?  I'm pretty sure that you'll find a big age gap: younger people will generally be more pro-remain, perhaps for idealistic reasons, perhaps because UKIP and the Tories are leading the remain campaign and that's a bit yucky, perhaps just because the EU basically as it is (post-Maastricht, the EU hasn't really changed that much) and so the move away from the status quo is more pronounced.  Could be wrong though; I've seen no polling on it so its based on personal experiences and a hunch

[IceAgeComing]

well the whole EU thing was a rather big part of the No sides argument...

Although there's no guarantee how Scotland would vote in an independence referendum after a successful Brexit vote; the current polls suggest a similar margin to last time but polls for what is still an abstract issue aren't always particularly accurate...

[IceAgeComing]

I think that's more the SNP than anyone else; and the SNP leadership being delusional on international affairs shouldn't really surprise anyone

[IceAgeComing]

oh boy another neverendum, I can't wait

I'm still pretty sure that we'll see a move back towards Remain as time go on; although with how awful the Remain campaign has been I'm starting to lose hope.  There's a small prospect that it could be Gibraltar's votes that keep us in (Wiki has one poll there with Remain at 88%, that seems about right since I imagine that Gibraltar would possibly be the place most hurt by the loss of freedom of movement since I'm sure that there's a huge amount of regular cross-border travel both ways) which I think would be really funny and probably really annoy Brexiters.

Michael Gove said something really dumb about how Scotland would be able to control immigration policy if we vote to leave the EU.  Hopefully I don't have to explain why this is something that will never happen: immigration isn't exactly something that you can devolve in that sort of way...