What was claimed
A new YouGov poll shows 62% of people think that Brexit is a bad thing.
Our verdict
Incorrect. The poll shows that 50% of GB adults think Britain was wrong to leave the EU, and a further 12% don’t know.
Daily Mirror misrepresents research on public support for Brexit
2 November 2020
“Pollster YouGov finding a record low of 38% still believe Brexit’s a good thing while 62% realise it’s bad illuminates why shackling a country to a narrow referendum squeaked on lies four years ago isn’t smart.”
In the 2 November 2020 print edition of the Daily Mirror, journalist Kevin Maguire claimed that a new poll by YouGov found that 38% of people think Brexit is a good thing while 62% think it is bad.
This is a misrepresentation of the research.
YouGov found that 38% of adults in Great Britain thought that, in hindsight, Britain was right to leave the European Union, 50% thought it was wrong, and 12% said they didn’t know.
This data comes from YouGov’s latest update of its EU tracker, with data gathered on 21 October and 22 October.
It shows the support for Brexit is at an equal-record low, and the gap between people saying Brexit was wrong and people saying it was right is at its largest since YouGov began tracking this data in August 2016.
However it is wrong to simply include all people who do not know whether Britain was right or wrong to leave the EU in with people who think it was wrong, as the Daily Mirror did.