European Parliament Elections 2014 – public opinion

This is the latest in my series about the European Parliament Elections this year. There are 750 MEPs elected to that institution and 73 of them are from the UK currently. This is bound to change over time as I noted in my previous post. It’s because the overall total stays the same, even when new member states are added (each is entitled to 6 MEPs at least).

This link will take you to a list of all the posts in this series so far (including this one). To start with, I looked at why the elections matter. This was followed by a detailed analysis of historical voter turnout data and then a post about the various alliances and which ones are linked to the parties in the UK. Then I did individual posts looking at the manifestos of the four major parties (Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP). Most recently, I explained how the voting system in the UK for these elections works. In addition, I provided links to a presentation about the voting system and a document with information for all current UK MEPs.

In this post, I am going over the information that can be taken from many of the recent opinion polls. Whilst not always the case, they can sometimes be a good indicator of intentions and the opinions of you (the public) on a variety of issues.

EuroBarometer

There was a survey by Eurobarometer in March. It took the opinions from all member states – not just the UK. The UK had the most respondents though. 59% of us had a bad opinion of the European economy (not surprising) and that’s despite 80% of UK respondents being happy with their household financial situation. 66% of us do not trust the European Union. However, only 38% of respondents felt that they were well informed about Europe. That’s quite interesting, because it means many are making judgements about the economy without any facts to back up their argument.

In/Out and Reform

On April 4th, there was an article on the BBC website giving details of a poll done for the Daily Politics by Populus. Typically, you will see them do regular opinion polls of UK voting intentions (as opposed to the more daily variety done by YouGov), but this was specially commissioned. Like all major opinion polls, it uses something called weightings and they question over 1000 people – a range which is considered representative. Populus, ICM, YouGov and others are members of the British Polling Council.

“The people most positive about UK membership of the EU fell into the Optimistic Contentment and Cosmopolitan Critic categories.”

The poll had several categories, all of which are listed in the BBC article. The first of the two in the quote are people that have a high income and are prudent, but think the UK is a soft touch. Clearly, they feel their income and lifestyle is not affected by the UK being a member state. The ‘soft touch’ phrase indicates that these people think we could still get a better deal though. That sort of thing is a good match to the Conservative approach (see my manifesto analysis). The second category are younger and secular people, who are concerned about growing inequality. It is well-known that young people are more apathetic when it comes to voting, but their worries about inequality wouldn’t necessarily mean they want to leave the EU. However, they are less likely to vote for parties with ties to high income earners and big business and they would also want reforms to immigration.

This Telegraph article gives you more information about the voter categories. It states that you are more likely to find some Liberal Democrats in the ‘Cosmopolitan Critics’ category. You will find some Labour voters in one called ‘Long Term Despair’, which is described as those people who feel alienated and have no stake in their country. They may have concerns about immigration and could also be receiving some form of benefits (not guaranteed though). In the context of the elections, they may not approve of the sizeable UK EU contribution and would support those who want to be tough on illegal immigrants.

This is from the aforementioned BBC article:

“Regional analysis of the results found that Scotland, London and the east of England were most likely to vote to stay in the European Union, whereas the north west of England and the West Midlands were most likely to vote for the UK to leave.”

The part about Scotland isn’t surprising. You will probably know of the big campaign for their independence – led by the SNP. New nations have to join the Euro and the borderless Schengen Area. Other parties in the Scottish Assembly oppose independence, but still want to stay in Europe. UKIP don’t have much of a foothold up there.

In terms of percentages, the Populus report shows that 28% of the 2067 surveyed felt positive about the EU, which isn’t exactly a great endorsement. This doesn’t necessarily mean they want to withdraw though. 30% of those with a negative opinion of the EU think the UK would be better off if we were no longer a member state. 42% don’t have a strong view either way, or would prefer if we stayed. Interestingly, the ‘Optimistic Contentment’ category is only 35% positive (still the biggest percentage of that category) and the Cosmopolitan critics are even more positive at 53%.

The question about an in/out referendum produces a narrow result. 32% would want to leave, whilst 35% want to stay. However, 27% didn’t know when that poll was done and if they make a decision, it would be hugely influential.

Voting Intentions

The above report/poll is very interesting because it tells you a lot about feeling towards the EU. However, that was early last month and it’s always best to have recent information. The following information was taken from this page and shows you which parties may get the most votes. Obviously, the party with the most votes has a stronger base in Europe and will be more able to implement the contents of their manifesto (assuming no U-turns).

You’ll note there’s no mention of e.g. the SNP and Plaid Cymru. Typically, you’ll find them in the ‘Others’ section for opinion poll results. In addition this data only shows national parties – those who have a (potential) reach across the whole UK.

Here’s a chart showing the changes:

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UKIP is consistently high in the polls this month. It suggests a large amount of anti-EU feeling and that matches up with the low positivity figure in the aforementioned Populus poll. Of the more moderate parties, Labour is top and stays there. There are no noticeable decreases for the Conservatives, who are consistently in third. The low support for the Lib Dems in these elections are reflective of current national opinion in general. It means that UKIP are highly likely to see an increase in seats, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be the biggest UK party. They may not even be part of the biggest alliance. In addition, this is only intention. It does not mean that all these people will actually vote.

Finally…

There has been plenty of information to go over and it’s not even time for the vote yet. I have attempted to explain complex and large sets of information in a way that’s accessible. I am always open to suggestions and constructive criticism. In addition, if you have any questions about these elections, I will make every effort to answer them. You can either leave a comment on here, send me an email, make a post/comment on Google+, comment on my Facebook page, or send me a tweet.

The next post(s) in this series will be about the results of the vote, which takes place in the UK on the 22nd and concludes days later. For some reason, someone decided that it was impossible for all member states to co-ordinate and hold their respective votes on the same day. Would love to know how that happened.

So, what do you think?