THREAD highlighting some of the stats from our @ESRCPtyMembers survey of 1215 ordinary Conservative Party members, together with a representative sample of 1675 voters. More detail (including tables) at esrcpartymembersproject.org/2019/01/04/no-…
72% of grassroots Tory members, compared to 68% of Tory voters, voted Leave. 79% think we made the right decision in 2016 – including a quarter (26%) of the (23%) minority who voted Remain.
We asked people to list the three most important issues facing the country, and 60% of them ranked Brexit number one. That figure rises to 68% among Tory voters and a whopping 75% among Tory members.
71% of voters think the government has made a mess of negotiating Brexit. That drops to 56% among *Tory* voters but rises again when we look at *members*, 68% of whom think the government is doing badly at negotiating Brexit.
49% of all voters oppose May’s deal; only 23% support it. For Tory voters it’s 46% v 38%. Incredibly, however, among actual members of the Conservative Party, opposition to their leader’s deal outweighs support for it by 59% to 38%.
More Tory members (53%) think May’s deal *doesn’t* respect the result of the referendum than think it does (42%), and if we take only those members who voted Leave back in 2016 some 67% think May’s deal fails to respect the result.
We asked members of the Conservative Party, as well as voters, what their first preference would be in a three-way referendum where the options were (a) remaining in the EU, (b) leaving with the proposed deal, or (c) leaving without a deal.
42% of all voters go for Remain, with 13% going for the PM’s deal, 25% for No Deal, & the rest saying they wouldn’t vote, didn’t know or refusing to answer. But the figures for *Tory* voters are very different: 23% Remain; 27% Deal; and 43% No Deal.
Among Tory members, support for No Deal is even higher: 57% say that leaving without a deal would be their first preference compared to 23% whose first preference was to leave on the basis of the deal and only 15% saying it was to remain.
The PM can clutch at the straw provided by the response of Tory members to being asked for their second preference: some 40% said it was leaving with the proposed deal. That said, some 33% said they would not cast a second preference.
More comfort for May? Faced with a binary choice between Remain & her deal, 20% of Tory members wouldn’t vote. 18% would vote Remain. But 57% of members, faced with the choice between Remain & May’s deal, would vote for the latter.
Tory members’ dislike for the PM’s deal comes out when we ask about a binary referendum between her deal or No Deal. Only 29% of Tory members would vote for Mrs May’s deal, compared to 64% who would vote to leave without a deal.
Faced with a Remain vs No Deal referendum, the electorate as a whole splits 45% Remain v 35% No Deal. Tory *voters* split 27% Remain v 63% No Deal. But 76% of Tory *members* would plump for No Deal.
Irish backstop? Only 11% of members think it makes sense; 23% think it’s a price worth paying; but 40% think it’s a reason in itself to reject a deal. And 21% think it’s irrelevant because Mrs May’s deal is a bad one anyway.
Scary or what? 72% of Tory *voters* and 76% of *members* think No Deal warnings are ‘exaggerated or invented’. And members are convinced by 64% to 19% that leaving without a deal would have a *positive* effect on the economy in the medium-long term.
Should the UK end up staying in the EU, 58% of Tory members would feel ‘betrayed’, and 15% ‘angry’. If the UK left on the basis of the deal the figures would still be 23% and 10%, with 22% ‘disappointed’ – not great but perhaps manageable?
‘Norway-plus’? No thanks! It would leave 38% of grassroots Tories feeling betrayed, 11% feeling angry, and 23% disappointed.
Only 15% of members think Mrs May’s got a good Brexit deal. 43% disagreed but think ‘any other leader would have done just as badly’. 37% think 'she’s got a poor Brexit deal, & an alternative leader would have got a better deal.’
44% of members think that, should Parliament vote to reject her deal, Theresa May should resign as leader and PM. Still, that leaves 50% of the Conservative rank and file who think she should stay in the job regardless.
That said, only 51% of members think she is doing well as PM (15% 'very well' and 36% 'fairly well'), while 48% (26% 'fairly' and 22% 'very') think she is doing badly.
Support among Tory members for an election if May's deal is rejected runs at only 12%, compared to 83% who oppose the idea. And support for a new referendum is likewise minimal, at just 14% compared to 82% who oppose holding one.
Hope all that’s right (I'm new to threads, OK? And Mrs Tim's not here to check my spelling and figures!) but do check against detail (including tables) at esrcpartymembersproject.org/2019/01/04/no-…
