WHAT SORT OF BREXIT DEAL DOES THE BRITISH PUBLIC WANT?

Transcription

1 WHAT SORT OF BREXIT DEAL DOES THE BRITISH PUBLIC WANT? A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE SO FAR NOAH CARL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL INVESTIGATION NUFFIELD COLLEGE, OXFORD AUGUST, 2017 This work is part of a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council s The UK in a Changing Europe initiative. For more information, see: Suggested citation: Carl, N. (2017). What sort of Brexit deal does the British public want: A review of the evidence so far. Centre for Social Investigation, 1

2 SUMMARY An important distinction has emerged between so-called soft Brexit, where Britain stays inside the Single Market and the Customs Union, and so-called hard Brexit, where Britain leaves both of these institutions without a trade deal. Several possible Brexit deals lie between these two extremes, including the Norway option, the Liechtenstein option, the Switzerland option, the Turkey option, and the Canada option. Other issues relevant to Britain s Brexit deal include: the degree of friction at the Irish border, the size of any exit fee, the status of EU citizens living in Britain, and the extent of future cooperation between Britain and the EU on matters like energy, research and security. About 25-30% of Britons want to stop Brexit completely, and about the same fraction are in favour of a second referendum on Britain s EU membership. Substantial majorities of the public say they want: EU citizens already living in Britain to have the right to stay, the power to control immigration, and continued free trade with the EU. A simple meta-analysis of polls reveals that support for has followed a roughly U-shaped path since the EU referendum: it went down during the winter of , and has since gone back up. Overall, support for is fairly even. Yet a sizable majority of the public regard continued freedom of movement as incompatible with the referendum result. 2

3 Introduction Since the UK voted to leave the European Union, there has been considerable interest from pollsters and academics in what sort of Brexit deal the British public might want. This report begins by outlining the various possible deals that could be struck between the UK and the EU over the next 18 months, paying close attention to the difference between. It proceeds to review the evidence that has been gleaned from polls and surveys so far about what sort of Brexit deal the British public actually prefer. It then examines how support for has changed since the EU referendum by conducting a simple meta-analysis of polls. What are the possible deals that could be struck? A variety of possible deals could be struck between the UK and the EU over the next 18 months. In the public debate over precisely what deal should be struck, an important distinction has emerged between so-called soft Brexit and so-called hard Brexit. 1 The former denotes a relatively close relationship between Britain and the EU, where Britain stays inside the Single Market and the Customs Union. By contrast, the latter denotes a relatively loose relationship, where Britain leaves both of these institutions, possibly without a trade deal. If Britain left the Single Market, it would regain the power to limit EU immigration, and would no longer have to comply with rulings from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) or contribute to the EU budget, yet businesses exporting to the EU might face additional costs or regulatory barriers. If Britain left the Customs Union, it would regain the power to negotiate free trade deals independently, but might be obligated to introduce customs checks at its borders, which could prove divisive in Northern Ireland. Table 1 summarises some arguments for and against leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union, respectively. Single Market Customs Union Table 1. Main arguments for and against leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union. Arguments for leaving Britain would regain the power to limit EU immigration, and would no longer have to comply with rulings from the ECJ or contribute to the EU budget. British businesses not exporting to the EU would no longer have to comply with Single Market regulations. Britain would no longer have to apply the common external tariff, and would regain the power to negotiate free trade deals independently. Arguments against leaving British businesses exporting to the EU would probably face additional costs or regulatory barriers. In particular, British banks might lose their EU passporting rights. As a consequence, they might relocate large numbers of staff from London to a major city within the EU. Britain would probably have to renegotiate the free trade deals that the EU has already signed. In addition, it might be obligated to introduce customs checks at its borders, which could prove divisive in Northern Ireland. Notes: Passporting rights allow British banks to operate in other EU countries under UK regulatory rules. 2 There are of course some other arguments for and against leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union, but these have been omitted for the sake of brevity. Soft and hard Brexit can be thought of as lying at either end of a continuum of possible deals: soft Brexit being closest to the status quo, and hard Brexit being furthest from it. As noted above, the softest possible deal would be one where Britain stayed inside both the Single Market and the Customs Union. There is currently no country or state that has this relationship with the EU. The next softest deal would be one where Britain stayed inside the Single Market, and thereby retained freedom of movement, but left the Customs Union. This has been dubbed the Norway option, since it corresponds to the relationship that Norway has with the EU. 3 The next softest deal would be one where Britain stayed inside the Single Market, but regained some control over EU immigration, and left the Customs Union. This could be denoted the Liechtenstein option. Indeed, Liechtenstein has a bilateral agreement with the EU that allows it to cap the number of EU immigrants entering the country, subject to a review every five years. However, it should be noted that EU leaders such as Angela Merkel have stated on a number of occasions that, for Britain, being inside the Single Market means accepting free movement of labour. 4 A somewhat harder deal would be one where Britain left the Single Market and the Customs Union, but negotiated bilateral agreements with the EU that went some way to approximating those of the Single Market. This could be denoted the Switzerland option. The next hardest deal would be one where Britain 3

4 left the Single Market completely, but stayed inside the Customs Union. This could be denoted the Turkey option, although it should be noted that the Turkish customs union only covers non-agricultural goods. The next hardest deal would be one where Britain left both the Single Market and the Customs Union completely, but negotiated a free trade deal with the EU that minimised tariffs and regulatory barriers for British exporters. This has been dubbed the Canada option. Finally, the hardest possible deal would be one where Britain left both the Single Market and the Customs Union completely, and reverted to WTO rules for trade. Many countries around the world, such as China, Russia and Australia, currently have this relationship with the EU. All the various possible deals that could be struck are summarised in Table 2. Table 2. Possible Brexit deals that could be struck between the UK and the EU, arranged from softest to hardest. Deal Trade with the EU Rulings from the ECJ Control over EU immigration Softest possible Inside Single Market Under ECJ jurisdiction Continued freedom of Brexit movement Norway option Inside Single Market Under EFTA Court Continued freedom of jurisdiction movement Liechtenstein option Inside Single Market Under EFTA Court Bilateral agreement jurisdiction allowing immigration cap Switzerland option Bilateral agreement Must accept some rulings Bilateral agreement approximating Single Market allowing limited control Turkey option Bilateral agreement eliminating Not under ECJ jurisdiction Bilateral agreement some barriers allowing extensive control Canada option Bilateral agreement eliminating Not under ECJ jurisdiction Bilateral agreement some barriers allowing extensive control Hardest possible WTO rules Not under ECJ jurisdiction Bilateral agreement Brexit allowing extensive control Trade with the rest of the world Inside Customs Union Outside Customs Union Outside Customs Union Outside Customs Union Inside Customs Union for some goods Outside Customs Union Outside Customs Union Notes: The EFTA Court has jurisdiction within the European Free Trade Association. EFTA law is largely identical to EU law. EU leaders have stated on a number of occasions that, for Britain, being inside the Single Market means accepting freedom of movement. The Liechtenstein option can therefore be regarded as much less likely than the others. Other issues relevant to Britain s Brexit deal include: the status of EU citizens living in Britain and British citizens living in the EU, the size of any exit fee, the degree of friction at the Irish border, the possibility of continued contributions to the EU budget, and the extent of future cooperation between Britain and the EU on matters like energy, research and security. The issue of friction at the Irish border is particularly complex. On the one hand, EU law requires there to be customs checks at all the Single Market s external borders, and although passport checks are unlikely Britain and Ireland having had a Common Travel Area since 1923 the absence of any such checks could lead to Northern Ireland becoming a back door for illegal EU immigration into the UK. 5 On the other hand, the introduction of time-consuming checks at the Irish border could prove divisive, not only because it would make the separation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland salient once again, but also because it could negatively impact trade between the two countries. A number of potential workarounds have been proposed. 6 Northern Ireland could be granted a special status that allowed it to stay inside the Customs Union, even while the rest of the UK left. Yet this proposal has already been rejected by the EU parliament. Alternatively, firms doing cross-border business could be given socalled Authorised Economic Operator status, which would allow them to move goods across the border without regular physical inspections. In addition, various electronic devices and computer systems could be used to track the movement of goods across the border, meaning that hauliers wouldn t necessarily need to stop. However, it is unlikely that such measures could be fully up and running by the UK s departure date of March (Note that the issue of friction at the Irish border does not arise if Britain stays inside the Single Market and the Customs Union.) What have polls and surveys found so far? 7 Pollsters have assessed what sort of Brexit deal Britons might want in a variety of ways: by asking them whether or not they are in favour of certain arrangements 8 ; by asking them what sort of arrangements would be compatible with the referendum result 9 ; by asking them whether Brexit would still be worth it if 4

5 particular arrangements were implemented as a consequence 10 ; by asking them whether they prefer one set of arrangements or another 11 ; by asking them to rank different sets of arrangements 12 ; and finally, by presenting them with different sets of arrangements, and then using discrete choice models to infer their underlying preferences. 13 These different ways of assessing the public s preferences have not always produced consistent results. Nonetheless, a number of conclusions can be drawn from the polls and surveys that have been conducted so far. First, about 25-30% of the public say they want to stop Brexit completely, and about the same fraction are in favour of a second referendum on Britain s EU membership. 14 For example, YouGov asked Britons for their views on the EU referendum, and 24% said that they do not support Britain leaving the EU and the government should ignore the result of the referendum or seek to overturn it in a second referendum. Second, a substantial majority of the public are in favour of granting EU citizens already living in Britain the right to stay. 15 For example, Curtice (2016) found that 76% of Britons were in favour of allowing all EU citizens who are already living in the UK to remain here, whereas only 12% were opposed. Third, a majority of the public do not regard continued free movement or continued contributions to the EU budget as being compatible with the referendum result. 16 For example, results obtained by Lord Ashcroft (2016) are displayed in Figure 1. Figure 1. Britons views on whether or not particular eventualities would be compatible with the referendum result. Compatible with Brexit Not compatible with Brexit 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% The UK still paid in to the EU budget New foreign nationals from other EU countries had the automatic right to live and work in the UK Existing foreign nationals from other EU countries currently living and working in the UK were allowed to stay The UK still had full access to the EU single market Notes: Figures are taken from Lord Ashcroft. (2016). The New Blueprint: The Conservative Agenda In Post-Brexit Britain. Lord Ashcroft Polls, published online. The specific question asked was: The Prime Minister has said that as far as she's concerned Brexit means Brexit. Would you consider that the UK had left the European Union and had honoured the referendum result if...? Total n = Fourth, substantial majorities of the public say they want the power to control immigration as well as continued free trade with the EU. 17 For example, Curtice (2016) found that 74% were in favour of requiring people from the EU who want to come to live here to apply to do so in the same way as people from outside the EU, while 90% were in favour of allowing companies based in the EU to sell goods and services freely in Britain in return for allowing British companies to sell goods and services freely in the EU. Additional results obtained by Curtice (2017) are displayed in Figure 2. The public s preferences on these matters could be seen as inconsistent, given that (as mentioned above) EU leaders have repeatedly stated that being inside the Single Market requires accepting free movement. On the other hand, there is no reason in principle why two countries cannot have free trade in goods and services, but limits on migration. Moreover, the case of Liechtenstein indicates that, in practice, the four freedoms 18 are not completely inviolable. 5

6 Figure 2. Britons views in favour or against possible eventualities of the Brexit negotiations. In favour Neither Against 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Keep free trade Keep EU regulations on beaches Keep EU mobile phone regulations Keep EU regulations on airline delays Keep cross-national university research Keep bank passporting Treat British migrants likes non- EU migrants Introduce customs checks Treat EU migrants like non-eu migrants End welfare for EU migrants End EU regulations on annual leave End free healthcare for British tourists End EU pesticide regulations Possible contents of a "soft" Brexit Possible contents of a "hard" Brexit Notes: Figures are taken from Curtice, J. (2017). Hard But not too hard: Much more on what voters want from Brexit. NatCen, published online. The specific question asked was: Following the decision to leave the European Union, the UK will have to negotiate a new agreement with the EU. For each of the following things, to what extent would you be in favour or against it being part of that agreement? For full wordings of each statement, please see the original report. Total n = 2,322. Fifth, the public appear to be about evenly split on the trade-off between soft and hard Brexit, as I discuss in further detail below. It should be noted, of course, that some commentators do not see soft versus hard Brexit as a trade-off. This group includes both Remainers and Leavers. On the one hand, there are Remainers who do not see free movement as cost of being inside the Single Market. 19 Such commentators argue that Britons benefit both from being able to live and work in other EU countries, and from the presence of large numbers of EU citizens in Britain. On the other hand, there are Leavers who do not see Single Market membership as beneficial to the economy. 20 Such commentators argue that Single Market regulations stymie British industry, and that remaining under the jurisdiction of the ECJ violates national sovereignty. Before proceeding, it is worth commenting on Rohr et al. s (2017) recent study. These authors presented Britons with different hypothetical Brexit deals, and then used discrete choice modelling to infer their underlying preferences. The hypothetical deals varied in a number of ways, including with respect to the amount Britain would have to contribute to the EU budget. By treating this variable as continuous in their discrete choice models, they were able to quantify how much Britons would be willing to pay in order to attain or avoid certain outcomes. They found that Britons would be willing to pay in order to be governed by British laws, to negotiate trade deals unilaterally, and to avoid facing high costs selling goods in the EU. Their overall conclusion was that the public would prefer a deal where Britain stays inside the Single Market but leaves the Customs Union. Somewhat oddly however, Rohr et al. (2017) found that the outcome Britons would be willing to pay most to avoid was visa requirements for EU holidays. Indeed, Britons would apparently be willing to pay more to avoid this outcome than to be governed by British laws, to negotiate trade deals independently, or to avoid facing high costs selling goods in the EU. This finding is odd for two reasons. First, visa requirements for EU holidays was barely an issue during the pre-referendum campaign, and was not mentioned by Remain voters as a reason why they voted Remain in any major post-referendum poll. 21 Second, it is rather unlikely that the British citizens will be required to obtain visas for EU holidays after Brexit. Currently, citizens from countries as diverse as Mauritius, El Salvador, Japan, Ukraine and Malaysia can travel to the EU for less than 90 days 6

7 without a visa. While the preceding finding by no means invalidates Rohr et al. s study, it does suggest that their results may have been partly influenced by how reasonable respondents considered the contents of the various hypothetical deals. It is also worth commenting on the recent study by Hobolt, Leeper and Tilley (2017). Like Rohr et al. (2017), these authors presented Britons with different hypothetical Brexit deals, and then used discrete choice modelling to infer their underlying preferences. They found that Leave voters were substantially more likely to choose deals where Britain regained control over EU immigration and was no longer subject to rulings from the ECJ, and were somewhat more likely to choose deals where Britain paid a small exit free. They found that Remain voters were substantially more likely to choose deals where EU citizens already living in Britain were granted the right to stay, and were somewhat more likely to choose deals where Britain faced few barriers to trade with the EU. Interestingly, Leave and Remain voters differed much less with respect to which outcomes they considered legitimate than with respect to which outcomes they actually preferred. In addition, Hobolt, Leeper and Tilley (2017) conducted a fixed scenario analysis, where they presented respondents with two packages of outcomes: one representing the contents of a soft Brexit, and one representing the contents of a hard Brexit. 22 As many as 68% of respondents opted for the hard Brexit package, while only 32% opted for the soft Brexit package. Rather surprisingly, when the sample was restricted to Remain voters, 53% still opted for the hard Brexit package, and only 47% opted for the soft Brexit package. One reason why the authors documented such strong support for hard Brexit (even among Remainers) is that the two packages may not have been very realistic. For example, the hard Brexit package offered full control over EU immigration and some administrative barriers to trade, whereas the soft Brexit package offered no control over EU immigration and few administrative barriers to trade. Having no control over EU immigration would seem to imply staying inside the Single Market, in which case Britain would presumably face no administrative barriers to trade with the EU. What conclusions have pollsters and academics themselves reached about the sort of Brexit deal that the British public actually prefer? As noted above, Rohr et al. (2017) concluded that the public would prefer a deal broadly akin to the Norway option. 23 And on the basis of their fixed scenario analysis, Hobolt, Leeper and Tilley (2017) concluded, to the contrary, that there is a higher aggregate level of support for outcomes that resemble a hard Brexit. 24 On the basis of a poll carried out in the summer of 2016, Wells (2016) concluded that the Canada option is the most popular type of Brexit deal. 25 And on the basis of two large surveys, Curtice (2016, 2017) concluded that the public want a deal that is hard but not too hard, i.e., one where Britain regained the power to limit EU immigration, negotiated a comprehensive free trade agreement that saw EU regulations continuing to govern parts of the British economy, and possibly even made continued contributions to the EU budget. 26 The divergent conclusions of these respective authors can be traced to differences in their methodologies. Rohr et al. s (2017) discrete choice models implied that Britons would be willing to pay more to avoid facing high costs selling goods in the EU than to be governed by British laws, and that they would also be willing to pay a lot to make trade deals independently. Hence they concluded that Britons would prefer a deal where the country stayed inside the Single Market but left the Customs Union i.e., the Norway option. By contrast, in Hobolt, Leeper and Tilley s (2017) fixed scenario analysis, more respondents opted for the hard Brexit package than the soft Brexit package. Hence they concluded that there is a higher aggregate level of support for outcomes that resemble a hard Brexit. Furthermore, Wells (2016) outlined the contents of both the Norway option and the Canada option in a preamble, and then asked respondents whether each deal would be good for Britain, and whether it respected the result of the referendum. Insofar as more respondents answered in the affirmative to these two questions when asked about the Canada option, he concluded that this was the most popular type of Brexit deal. Finally, Curtice (2016, 2017) simply asked respondents whether they were in favour or against certain arrangements. Given that a large fraction of respondents were in favour of both the power to control immigration and continued free trade with the EU, as well as EU regulations continuing to govern parts of the British economy, he concluded that they want a deal that is hard but not too hard. 7

8 How has support for changed since the EU referendum? I assembled all the polls and surveys I could find pertaining to the trade-off between soft versus hard Brexit (see Appendix A for details on how the polls were collected). 39 polls met the inclusion criteria (as of 14 August, 2017). was calculated simply as the percentage supporting soft Brexit minus the percentage supporting hard Brexit. (Answers of don t know, unsure or uncertain were therefore not taken into account.) Figure 3 displays two scatterplots of difference in support for since the EU referendum: in the left-hand panel, the variable has been residualized on polling company indicators; and in the right-hand panel, it has been residualized on an indicator for online versus telephone. Residualizing on polling company indicators subtracts each value from the mean value for polls conducted by the same company, thereby adjusting for differences in question wording and methodology across different polling companies. (The same applies to residualizing on the indicator for online versus telephone.) In both panels, the dashed zero-line runs roughly through the centre of the points, indicating that the public appear to be about evenly split on the putative trade-off between soft and hard Brexit. (Appendix B provides formal statistical evidence that there has been no linear trend in support for since the referendum.) Figure 3. Scatterplots showing difference in support for soft vs. hard Brexit since the EU referendum. Notes: Panel A demarcates polls conducted by different companies. Panel B demarcates polls conducted online from those conducted by telephone. However, both panels of Figure 3 show some evidence of a U-shape: support for soft versus hard Brexit appears to have decreased from the summer of 2016 to the winter of , and then increased from the winter of to the summer of (Appendix C provides formal statistical evidence that there has been a U-shaped trend in support for since the referendum.) Figure 4 displays a scatterplot of difference in support for ; it has been residualized on both polling company indicators and an indicator for online versus telephone. A non-linear best-fit line has been superimposed on the chart, which implies that support for soft Brexit is currently about 2 percentage points higher than support for hard Brexit, but was about 4 percentage points lower in the winter of There are a number of conceivable explanations for the U-shaped path in support for soft versus hard Brexit. The decline in support for soft Brexit from the summer of 2016 to the winter of might be attributable to the fact that economic conditions did not dramatically worsen in the immediate aftermath of the vote, contrary to some predictions made prior to the referendum. As a consquence, some individuals who 8

9 were ideologically sympathetic to Leave but who voted Remain for economic reasons might have switched their support to hard Brexit. The subsequent recovery in support for soft Brexit from the winter of to the summer of 2017 might be attributable to the fact that inflation ticked up and GDP growth slowed during the first half of the year, which may have led marginal voters to switch their support back to soft Brexit. Alternatively, the recovery in support for soft Brexit might be due to the relatively tough public stance that EU leaders took prior to the start of the negotiations. Of course, in the absence of any specific evidence for or against the preceding conjectures, they remain speculative. Figure 4. Scatterplot showing difference in support for soft vs. hard Brexit since the EU referendum. Notes: y-values have been residualized on polling company dummies and a dummy for online versus telephone. A lowess line with default parameter settings has been fitted to the data. This is similar to a moving-average. Conclusion This report began by outlining the various possible Brexit deals that could be struck between the UK and the EU, paying close attention to the difference between. It proceeded to review the evidence that has been gleaned from polls and surveys about what sort of Brexit deal the British public actually prefer. It then examined how support for has changed since the EU referendum, by conducting a simple meta-analysis of polls. The softest possible Brexit deal would be one where the UK stayed inside both the Single Market and the Customs Union. The hardest possible Brexit deal would be one where the UK left both of these institutions, and reverted to WTO rules for trade. A number of other possible deals lie between these two extremes: the Norway option, the Liechtenstein option, the Switzerland option, the Turkey option, and the Canada option. Other issues relevant to Britain s Brexit deal include: the degree of friction at the Irish border, the size of any exit fee, the status of EU citizens living in Britain, and the extent of future cooperation between Britain and the EU on matters like energy, research and security. In polls and surveys, about 25-30% of Britons want to stop Brexit completely, and about the same fraction are in favour of a second referendum on Britain s EU membership. Substantial majorities of the public say they want: EU citizens already living in Britain to have the right to stay, the power to control immigration, and continued free trade with the EU. Averaging over all polls since the EU referendum, the public is about evenly split on the putative trade-off between. However, it should be noted that a sizable majority of the public regard continued free movement as incompatible with the referendum result. 9

10 Appendix A In order to track down polls pertaining to the trade-off between, I began by searching each major polling company s website for the string brexit. Next, I went through the archive on each polling company s website, and identified polls that appeared relevant. Finally, I used the search feature on the website What UK Thinks: EU, filtering the results by what Brexit means. In order to discern whether a particular poll had asked specifically about the trade-off between, I searched the corresponding results file for the strings single, free and trade. The exact question wording varied appreciably from one poll to another. For example, some polls 27 simply asked respondents to choose between two options: (a) remaining in the Single Market and having free access to EU markets, and (b) leaving the Single Market and having full control over immigration. Other polls 28 asked respondents to answer on an 11-point scale from: (0) securing free access to the Single Market to (10) having full control over immigration. In the case of these polls, support for soft Brexit was calculated as the sum of the percentages answering 0 4, while support for hard Brexit was calculated as the sum of the percentages answering Only polls that met the three following criteria were retained for analysis: the question concerning the trade-off between gave respondents no more than two options; a pdf or.xls results file was available for download; the poll was conducted after the 23 rd of June, Appendix B Table S1 displays estimates from OLS models of difference in support for, treating time as linear. Days since first poll is not a significant predictor of difference in support in any of the four models. Table S1. OLS models of difference in support for, treating time as linear. Days since first poll (0.02) * (7.43) (10.43) 0.00 (7.33) (8.00) 8.79 (8.04) (6.90) 2.18 (6.77) 5.20 (7.55) 5.39 (7.42) 14.08** (4.95) (5.79) ComRes 21.31* (8.10) GQR 9.07 (11.66) Ipsos MORI 7.89 (7.59) Lord Ashcroft (8.96) NatCen 8.27 (9.00) ORB (7.71) Opinium 1.18 (7.57) Survation 7.52 (8.40) YouGov 4.08 (8.29) Telephone 15.50** (4.36) Constant (3.93) (6.48) (3.52) n R Notes: Standard errors are given in parentheses. The date of the first poll is: 30/06/2016. The reference category for polling company indicators is: BMG. The reference category for telephone is: online. Significance levels: + 10%, * 5%, ** 1%. 10

11 Appendix C Table S1 displays estimates from OLS models of difference in support for, treating time as quadratic. Both days since first poll and days since first poll squared are significant predictors of difference in support in all four models. Table S2. OLS models of difference in support for, treating time as quadratic. Days since first poll -0.14* (0.06) Days since first poll 0.04* squared/ (0.06) 0.03* (0.06) 0.03* (0.05) 0.03* 15.87* (6.88) 9.53 (9.67) 0.09 (6.78) (7.41) (7.50) 0.84 (6.40) 3.11 (6.28) 4.18 (7.00) 6.09 (6.88) 12.97** (4.61) 0.35 (6.54) ComRes 20.09* (7.53) GQR 8.04 (10.82) Ipsos MORI 7.30 (7.04) Lord Ashcroft (8.30) NatCen (8.41) ORB 0.01 (7.17) Opinium 2.31 (7.03) Survation 6.18 (7.81) YouGov 4.98 (7.70) Telephone 13.50** (4.25) Constant (5.89) (7.32) (5.53) n R Notes: Standard errors are given in parentheses. The date of the first poll is: 30/06/2016. The reference category for polling company indicators is: BMG. The reference category for telephone is: online. Significance levels: + 10%, * 5%, ** 1%. Notes and References 1 Some commentators have argued that the label hard Brexit is biased due to the negative connotations of the word hard, and have advocated the label clean Brexit instead ( Lyons, G. (2017). Why a clean Brexit would be best for the new Global Britain. Evening Standard, published online. ) However, I will refer to because these are the labels that seem to have gained currency within the public debate. 2 Bank of England. (2017). Passporting. Bank of England, published online. 3 This option would probably require Britain to join an organization called the European Free Trade Association, which currently comprises Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. 4 McGuinness, D. (2016). Why UK Brexit talk baffles Germany. BBC News, published online. 5 O Carroll, L. (2017). How does the Irish border affect the Brexit talks? The Guardian, published online. 6 The Economist. (2017). How a hard Irish border could return, courtesy of Brexit. The Economist, published online. 7 I consulted over 50 polls, surveys and reports concerning what the British public wants from Brexit. All of these were published online between June 2016 and August My conclusions are limited to findings that I judged to be the most consistent in the literature. 8 Curtice, J. (2016). What do voters want from Brexit? NatCen, published online. 9 Lord Ashcroft. (2016). The New Blueprint: The Conservative Agenda In Post-Brexit Britain. Lord Ashcroft Polls, published online. 10 Drummond, A. (2017). Red lines for Leave voters. Opinium, published online. 11 Ipsos MORI. (2017). Britain still divided on priorities for Brexit negotiations. Ipsos MORI, published online. 12 Wells, A. (2017). Majority favour pushing on with Brexit but many are tempted by a softer path. YouGov, published online. 11

12 13 Rohr, C., Pollitt, A., Howarth, D., Lu, Hui & Grant, J. (2017). What sort of Brexit do the British people want? Kings College London, published online. And see Hobolt, S. & Leeper, T. (2017). The British are indifferent about many aspects of Brexit, but Leave and Remain voters are divided on several key issues. LSE Brexit Blog, published online. 14 Wells, A. (2016). Brexit briefing: fewer than one in five think the government is handling Brexit well. YouGov, published online. And see Survation. (2017). Survation conducted a telephone poll of 1,017 UK adults aged 18+ about their voting intentions and other topical issues. Survation, published online. 15 Wells, A. (2016). Canada Option is most popular type of Brexit deal. YouGov, published online. And see Curtice, J. (2016). What do voters want from Brexit? NatCen, published online. 16 Lord Ashcroft. (2016). The New Blueprint: The Conservative Agenda In Post-Brexit Britain. Lord Ashcroft Polls, published online. And see Wells, A. (2016). Brexit briefing: fewer than one in five think the government is handling Brexit well. YouGov, published online. And see Hobolt, S. & Leeper, T. (2017). The British are indifferent about many aspects of Brexit, but Leave and Remain voters are divided on several key issues. LSE Brexit Blog, published online. 17 Curtice, J. (2016). What do voters want from Brexit? NatCen, published online. And see Curtice, J. (2017). Hard But not too hard: Much more on what voters want from Brexit. NatCen, published online. And see Rohr, C., Pollitt, A., Howarth, D., Lu, Hui & Grant, J. (2017). What sort of Brexit do the British people want? Kings College London, published online. And see Hobolt, S. & Leeper, T. (2017). The British are indifferent about many aspects of Brexit, but Leave and Remain voters are divided on several key issues. LSE Brexit Blog, published online. 18 The four freedoms of the EU Single Market comprise free of movement of goods, services, labour and capital. 19 Dixon, H. (2016). Britain benefits from free movement. Open Democracy, published online. 20 Redwood, J. (2017). Why we will leave the single market and the customs union. John Redwood s Diary, published online. 21 Prosser, C., Mellon, J. & Green, J. (2016). What mattered most to you when deciding how to vote in the EU referendum? British Election Study, published online. And see Lord Ashcroft. (2016). How the United Kingdom voted on Thursday and Why. Lord Ashcroft Polls, published online. 22 Respondents were not presented with the terms soft and hard Brexit, but merely the two packages of outcomes. In separate analyses, the authors compared the soft Brexit package to a no deal package, and the hard Brexit package to a no deal package. 23 Rohr, C., Pollitt, A., Howarth, D., Lu, Hui & Grant, J. (2017). What sort of Brexit do the British people want? Kings College London, published online. 24 Ball, J. & Applegate, C. (2017). This huge new study reveals what the British public really wants from Brexit. Buzzfeed News, published online. 25 Wells, A. (2016). Canada Option is most popular type of Brexit deal. YouGov, published online. 26 Curtice, J. (2016). What do voters want from Brexit? NatCen, published online. And see Curtice, J. (2017). Hard But not too hard: Much more on what voters want from Brexit. NatCen, published online. 27 YouGov. (2016). Poll of 1652 GB carried out th June on behalf of The Times. YouGov, published online. 28 Lord Ashcroft. (2016). The New Blueprint: The Conservative Agenda In Post-Brexit Britain. Lord Ashcroft Polls, published online. 12