Brexit Has Made Britain a Poorer Place, Say Voters
An exclusive new poll suggests that four years on from leaving the EU, even Leave voters don't think they are better off
In this week’s Bienkov Briefing:
Exclusive new poll suggests that most voters think Brexit has made Britain poorer
Even Leave voters don’t think leaving the EU has made them any better off
Conservatives now seen as party of the rich by 86% of those surveyed
But significant minority think Labour also now represent the rich
Voters disagree with Starmer’s decision to oppose reinstating bankers’ bonus cap
Big majority say both parties should prioritise public services over tax cuts
Millions still unaware of Voter ID requirements as Government rules out changes
Brexit has made Britain a poorer place, with only one-in-five Leave voters still believing they are better off as a result of leaving the EU, findings from an exclusive new poll for the Byline Supplement suggest.
Rishi Sunak’s Government this week published a report claiming that Brexit had “defied all expectations” and shown that “forecasts of inevitable decline… have been proved false.”
However, the new poll, conducted by pollsters We Think on the four year anniversary week of Britain’s exit from the EU, suggests that most voters disagree.
The poll found that 60% of all those surveyed believe Britain is poorer as a result of having left the EU, compared to just 12% who say it is richer.
Most voters also appear to believe that Brexit has made them personally worse off with 51% of those surveyed saying it has, 37% saying it has made no difference and just 12% saying it has actually made them better off.
Even those who voted for Brexit in 2016 are more likely to say they now feel worse off than better off for leaving the EU, by 23% to 21%.
Conservatives Are Party of the Rich, say 86% of Voters
The poll also found that Rishi Sunak’s claims to be standing up for ‘ordinary’ Brits are not believed by most voters.
Asked whether the Conservative Party more prioritises the interests of the rich, or the poor, 86% of those surveyed said they stood up for the rich, compared to just 14% who said they more served the poor.
Voters were much more likely to say that Labour stands up for poor people, according to the poll.
However, in a week in which Keir Starmer’s party said it would oppose reimposing the cap on bankers’ bonuses, a significant minority of voters said that Labour now more prioritised the interests of the rich than the poor , by 39% to 61%.
On the issue of bankers’ bonuses, an overwhelming majority of 78% of those surveyed said they would support reimposing the cap.
Prioritise Public Services Over Tax Cuts
Sunak’s Government this week again signalled that it plans to prioritise tax cuts before the general election.
The planned cuts are set to put additional pressure on public services, which independent experts this week warned would be placed under huge strain in the coming years under the Government’s current spending plans.
However, despite planning the cuts as part of a pre-election bung to voters, our poll found that most Brits would prefer the Government to prioritise public services instead.
According to the survey’s findings, 67% think ministers should prioritise investing in public services, compared to just 33% who think they should prioritise cutting taxes.
The poll found little difference in responses between Labour and Conservative voters, with even 65% of those planning to vote for Rishi Sunak’s party saying that ministers should prioritise spending on services like schools and hospitals.
Ten Million Voters Still Don’t Know They Need Voter ID
This week’s poll also found that around ten million eligible voters do not know that they will need photo ID in order to vote in the upcoming general election.
The poll’s findings suggest that 22% of those UK voters surveyed are still not aware that they will need to carry a form of photographic ID.
This figure has risen by just one per cent since last April when We Think found that just 21% of voters were aware of the new requirements.
The findings come after Rishi Sunak’s Government brought in a new law forcing voters to carry one of a limited number of approved IDs in order to vote.
The legislation was rushed through despite almost no evidence of in-person voting fraud in the UK.
At the last general election in 2019 there was just one conviction for impersonation at a polling booth.
Last year the former Brexit minister Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted that the introduction of mandatory voter ID was an attempt to “gerrymander” future elections for the Conservative Party.
The former Brexit Minister, who was part of Boris Johnson’s Government that introduced plans to force voters to present photo ID at polling stations, told the National Conservatism Conference in London that the plans were a “clever scheme” by his party to swing voters in their favour.
The UK’s elections watchdog has urged the Government to reform the policy.
The Chair of the Electoral Commission, John Pullinger, warned just this week that the rules risked disenfranchising certain groups of voters.
“The photo ID requirement is clearly proving more of a barrier to some people than others”, he said.
However, Downing Street has repeatedly refused to implement recommendations by the Commission to increase the forms of IDs accepted at polling station.
Under current rules some IDs, such as senior bus passes, are accepted at polling stations, while others such as young people’s bus passes are not.
A Government spokesperson insisted this week that it was vital for “security” for these forms of ID to be excluded.
However, responding to this rejection of their proposals for other forms of ID to be accepted, the Electoral Commission’s chair told the FT that: “I think readers will need to draw their own judgment about that”.
This discrepancy between the forms of accepted ID may have a significant impact at the general election, according to our poll.
According to the survey younger voters are much less likely to know about the ID requirements than older voters. Although one in three (33%) of those voters surveyed under 40 say they are not aware of the ID requirements, a huge 97% of those aged over 75 said that they were.
Muzzling the Watchdog
The findings come in the same week that the Government was accused of trying to hobble the UK’s elections watchdog.
As Byline reported, the Government’s new ‘Strategy and Policy statement’ for the Commission places great emphasis that the commission should focus on the limited cases of voter fraud, rather than regulations of donations.
It also emphasises the need to sign up voters currently living abroad, rather than on enfranchising the millions of voters who currently do not take part in elections within the UK.
This strategy has led to allegations from democracy campaigners that the Government is threatening the independence of the watchdog.
Tom Brake, Director of Unlock Democracy, told us in December: “The Government is at sixes and sevens on this. It can’t on the one hand claim ‘it is vital for the health of democracy that the UK have an independent regulator’ whilst at the same time writing its Strategy and Policy Statement, destroying its independence.”
Governments are so busy creating ways to Not Improve Our Lives that we wonder what we do need them for. Roadblocks to voting? Imagine that!