How Project Fear Failed to Keep Britain in the EU – And the Signs That Anyone Could Have Read
1. Immigration became the focus, not the economy
Whilst the conventional wisdom has been that in the end the decision would hinge on the economy, in the final two weeks of the campaigns, Ipsos’s Political Monitor found immigration become the top ranked issue which would impact how people would vote, replacing the economy. And our monthly Issues Index told the same story – while concern about the EU rose by four percentage points in June just ahead of the referendum, concern about immigration rose by ten.
2. The leave campaign messages were getting more cut-through
With each side lobbing claims and counter claims in the lead up to the vote, the same research found the leave campaign’s were getting better traction – despite being contested. Just a week out from the referendum 45 per cent believed a vote for remain would be followed by Turkey gaining fast-track entry to the EU – and its population effectively granted free movement to the UK.
A similar proportion (47 per cent) believed the claim that the UK pays £350m a week to the EU – but only 17 per cent believed the Treasury’s projection that Brexit would make every household £4,300 worse off per year and permanently poorer.
3. Brexiteers were pretty confident leaving would actually be good for the economy
We used a new type of research which indicates how strongly people hold their views during the campaign, and found that Leave voters were just as convinced that leaving will be better for the economy as Remain voters were that staying will be better.
Whilst the referendum was primarily framed as a debate about the economy versus immigration, leave voters were already pretty confident that Britain’s economy would be better outside the EU – even when measuring their ‘implicit reaction times’ (with a 45 per cent “emphatic” score).
4. The argument about the long-term and personal economic impact was far from won
In May, half of the public told us that leaving the EU would be worse for the economy in the short term. But when thinking about the economy over the next ten to twenty years people were more evenly split - two in five (39 per cent) said it would be better compared with 35 per cent who said it would be worse.
And perhaps even more importantly, voters were not making a personal connection – 46 per cent thought their own standard of living would not be affected by Brexit.
5. It was never just about the economy anyway
Finally, there is one finding that sums up the referendum campaign. My first point was about how immigration overtook the economy as the key issue to voters – but even more important was the difference in the issues motivating each side.
Right to the end, the economy was the most important issue for remain voters at 46%, followed by trade and jobs – immigration only came in fourth. But the story for leave voters was very different. For them, the economy only scraped in third – a long way behind sovereignty (32 per cent), while immigration was way out in front at 54 per cent.
So even if the Remain camp was winning the argument on the economy – which as we have seen, is debatable in the first place – many leavers simply weren’t that interested.
