Last edited Fri Oct 6, 2017, 12:20 PM - Edit history (1)
I don't want to butt into your discussion with Muriel, but I have my own (hot!) take on this:
Indeed. I was referering to the politicians. Maybe people didn't know how to interprete the polls, but Politicians should and probably did but they chose to not care.
It has worried me during the campaign. A wise leader should never sweep aside such indications. In any election or referendum, the uncertainity factor, whatever low it is, can't be neglected. Unless if you have a special knowledge of the future, which is not very frequent to the least, and which is for sure not politicians' main strenght. They barely anticipate the events even if they are highly foorseeable...
David Cameron had not long before fought the Scottish independence referendum, in which his "side" (No) won, though not as comfortably as the government might have expected since the Yes camp started out on roughly 28% and this climbed to around 45% by the time of the vote - a late (outlier) opinion poll that showed Yes winning excited panic and many promises of concessions to Scottish autonomy which were never honoured, but I'll try not to sidetrack onto that.
Despite that scare, I think the result gave him a false sense of confidence in his own abilities to sway public opinion when he called the Brexit referendum (arrogance was one of his hallmarks as prime minister).
What he didn't allow for was that the media were almost universally hostile to Scottish independence (only one Sunday newspaper supported it, and no broadcast media).
This did not apply in the Brexit referendum.
Like many others, I'd watched the polls closely. I'd predicted the Scottish referendum result correctly to friends - despite the polls being relatively close, I expected there to be a late swing towards the status quo, which is normally what happens in such cases.
That sort of swing didn't happen in the Brexit referendum - if anything it swung the other way. Cameron, the figurehead, represented the establishment, so he was a focus for a protest vote, which added to any other late swings among undecided voters and the unpredictable effects of voter turnout.
Cameron had effectively disenfranchised many students before the vote happened by changing the rules for voter registration because this would favour his party in a general election. Since younger people have been consistently in favour of Remain, this was one significant factor that tipped the balance. There were many others.
Pollsters always have problems taking account of likely voters and turnout. Especially when the polling results are close, that's very significant.
He was unbelievably irresponsible in making public statements and including on the ballot form a declaration that this would be a binding referendum rather than an advisory one - that was not the original intention. I think he did it to try to ensure that people took the vote very seriously. He was a habitual risk-taker in such matters - brinkmanship - and it backfired on all of us.
That and not setting a threshold greater than 50% for a "win", as well as refusing to let our civil service plan for the possibility of Leave winning, are among the stupidest, most destructive acts by a prime minister I can imagine short of going to war on false pretexts or setting armed thugs against a non-violent sector of the population, for whatever reason.
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