Results of Herts Ad EU survey suggests St Albans vote may be too close to call
It's time to make your mind up... - Credit: Archant
The latest results from the Herts Advertiser’s EU Referendum survey suggest that participants are still leaning towards leaving the EU, but the gap between ‘Brexiters’ and those who wish to remain is a closer call.
Nearly 450 people have taken the online poll, with 52.4 per cent planning on voting to leave in tomorrow’s Referendum, 45.4 per cent voting to remain, and the rest undecided or not planning to vote at all.
That has decreased from the first set of results released at the end of May, where 58.2 per cent of the then 259 responses were planning to vote to leave the EU.
People over the age of 50 still make up the biggest proportion of participants, with 50.6 per cent of responses, and just 15 per cent aged 30 and under took the survey.
A substantial 78.5 per cent believe that the EU rules affect their day-to-day life but 49.8 per cent would not describe themselves as European (compared to 53.8 per cent previously).
The view that overall free movement within the EU is bad for the UK has decreased from 60.1 per cent to 54 per cent, and the number of people who believe that leaving the EU will damage the UK economy has increased to 44.9 per cent from 39.5 per cent.
Proportions on the question regarding David Cameron’s new deal remain very similar, with about 65.5 per cent saying that it made no difference to their decision.
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In contrast to the previous results, 39 per cent believe that being part of the EU makes the UK a safer place with 32.5 believing that it puts UK security at risk. The latter previously had a majority of 36.7 per cent.
The occupations of those who participated varied from teachers, to stay at home mums, students, accountants, business owners and writers but the biggest proportion were retired.
When asked who the most compelling leader was on each side of the debate, Nigel Farage seemed to be a popular figure among participants for the Vote Leave campaign, and many were split about whether Boris Johnson was a good figure for the campaign.
David Cameron was largely seen as the most compelling leader for the ‘Britain Stronger In’ campaign with mentions of Jeremy Corbyn, Barack Obama, Nick Clegg, Yvette Cooper and Gordon Brown.
Hot topics participants wrote about when asked what issues should be considered in the debate were the NHS, the economy, trade, sovereignty, and immigration.