Lord Ashcroft polling is back with a 20k sample EURef survey
An unusual voting question approach was used so difficult to make comparisons
@LordAshcroft #EUref poll didn't ask simple question but this – pic.twitter.com/XEEvw4dWyV
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 16, 2015
The past 24 hours has seen a glut of EU referendum polling with the latest, overnight, being a 20k sample online poll from Lord Ashcroft.
Lord Ashcroft’s post on the survey, linked to above, is well worth reading because it goes into far more than just referendum voting intention. On the immigration issue Lord Ashcroft notes that it is actually quite complex:
“.. Immigration will clearly be central to the debate, since it touches many of the broader themes behind the debate, including prosperity, security and identity. But the argument that only Brexit allows Britain to take full control of its borders may not be the clincher that many Outers hope: while nearly four in ten in our poll thought “we’ll never be able to bring immigration under control unless we leave the EUâ€, almost as many thought “we won’t be able to bring immigration under control even if we leave the EUâ€. For one thing, immigration from the rest of the world would be unaffected – and for another thing, a much stricter limit on the numbers coming to live in Britain sounds to many people like the kind of political promise that never quite gets delivered.. “
Given the huge polling divide on the referendum between online and phone it would be helpful if at some stage there could be an Ashcroft EU phone poll. At the moment only ComRes and Ipsos-MORI are carrying out such surveys and only intermittently.
This was from ComRes yesterday. Same pollster, same question just different fieldwork approach.
The ComRes #EUref methodology test – same question very different findings pic.twitter.com/yL9nHvC1Fy
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 16, 2015
The latest thinking on referendum timing is September 2016 so not that far off.