Thread by @Usherwood

Right then. Since many of you are (rightly) aggrieved by the very particular reading of the data cited in this article, let's have a dig into what's what

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https://twitter.com/Usherwood/status/1121733065213194240

The report was done by @EurobarometerEU for the EP, but it's currently only on the EP website: europarl.europa.eu/at-your-servic…

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the most useful piece of context is that the EU's public image was badly hit during the eurocrisis, but is gradually recovering some of its lost ground, albeit to a still rather ambivalent level

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For a good overview, read @sarahobolt & @CatherineDVries's 2016 piece in ARPS: annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.11…

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Any way, back to the data

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Reading through, the UK isn't necessarily as much of an outlier as might be expected.

Take how people see EU membership: UK is more polarised than most, but % seeing it a 'good thing' isn't worst

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That's underlined by Q about benefit of membership: UK is almost on a par with France

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Net those figures out and UK looks like one of a bunch (and well ahead of where Italy is at present)

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But you're interested in the voting Q (as am I), so here's that data in full

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Various things to note here:
- no country (inc. UK) has a plurality for leaving
- UK has both smallest % who'd vote to remain, and highest % who'd vote to leave
- UK has same % undecided as EU27

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We might also note that those countries with weaker support for membership (as noted above) don't seem to translate that into a desire to leave the organisation. However, the data doesn't tell us if that's because of a desire to change EU from inside, or general disconnect

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I'd also note that while it's great to finally have such a Q in EB surveying, it's not a recurrent one, so it's hard to draw any solid conclusions from it, especially about change over time

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Indeed, UK situation is consistent with other polling: polarised debate, persistent Leave/Remain identities, and not much common ground.

More surprising finding is 18% don't knows, given @whatukthinks work on how non-voters in #EUref seem to split more to remain

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But let's move on a bit, as there's other stuff worth noting

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In general, public isn't happy about direction of either their country or EU: this is a structural problem

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Again, the report nets these out by country: some really big differences here (although we'll note once more that UK isn't alone)

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For those of you with narratives to spin, there's a great (because poorly-worded) Q on protest parties to play with. I can offer no useful conclusions on it, but I'm sure someone will pop up with 'what it all means'

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And some vivid data on whether you voice counts in the EU: UK is certainly not worst. Feels like a centre-periphery dynamic, with Ireland reflecting Art.50 process effects

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Even if we look at whether your country's voice counts in EU, UK (while still poor) isn't at Greek-like depths

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Much of the rest of the main report doesn't include UK data (which, if I were picky, could be a breach of treaty obligations on non-discrimination), but there is this data table for the UK on the key questions

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You're all very good with your data skills, so you can draw your own inferences, but you might note the apparent flattening of the age gradient on remaining, and it's absence on things going wrong in UK, both of which will matter in #EP2019

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In summary then:
- UK opinion of EU isn't great, but it's not that exceptional
- the problems the EU faces are multiple, but withdrawal of UK won't solve them, in of itself

/end

(like this, @rowanscott ?)