How many Britons really want out of the EU?
Jon Gaunt, the official spokesman for the EU Referendum Campaign, stated in the Daily Express that a recent ComRes poll for the interest group found '75 per cent of the British public want out of the EU'.
The EU Referendum campaign lobbies for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, and has commissioned a number of polls conducted by ComRes, a market research agency, on the issue.
In October 2010 ComRes found that 75 per cent of the British public wanted, before any increase in the UK's contributions to the EU budget, a referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU. However, this does not necessarily mean that 75 per cent of the British public want 'out of the EU', and indeed the question wasn't even posed by ComRes.
Many of the surveys and polls on the issue of Britain's relationship with the EU posit questions regarding the extent of involvement Britain should have with the EU or whether a referendum should take place on the UK's continued membership in the EU.
There is much scope, therefore, for misinterpretation of the data. For example, an August 2009 report from the Standard Eurobarometer which monitors public opinion for the European Commission, states that when asked the question of whether membership of the EU is a good thing, 30 per cent in the UK gave a positive response, an average figure when one looks at five year trends. One might infer, therefore, that 70 per cent believe membership is a bad thing, but when posed the question whether membership was a bad thing, an equal proportion of UK citizens, 30 per cent agreed.
The Daily Express also published the statement that "polls have shown by a margin of almost two to one that the British public wants out of the EU" which implies two thirds of the public want to leave the EU. There is little indication in this instance of which polls are being referenced and on what terms the question was posed.
This not only contradicts the figure from Gaunt but is at odds with another claim by the Daily Express citing results from a June 2010 Angus Reid poll: "A survey by pollsters Angus Reid showed that 48 per cent of voters asked want Britain freed from the yoke of Brussels while 59 per cent believe EU membership has damaged the UK".
To give these statistics their full context, the question asked in the first instance was how people would vote if a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union were held tomorrow, with just under half saying they would vote against the UK remaining a member of the EU.
When asked whether EU membership has been positive or negative for the United Kingdom, 30 per cent of British adults believe that EU membership has been moderately negative and 29 per cent believe it has been very negative.
Whilst the Express has accurately reproduced these figures, it is worth looking at what other pollsters have found on the issue.
A ComRes poll from March 2009 states that 55 per cent want to leave but maintain trading links with the EU and a YouGov survey from September 2010 found that 47 per cent would vote for Britain to leave the EU in a referendum.
Looking at the trends surrounding European Union membership, the most recent MORI poll in 2007 asked the question 'if there was a referendum now on whether Britain should stay in or get out of the European Union, how would you vote?' 56 per cent of all those expressing an opinion chose to 'stay in', with 44 per cent indicating that they would vote to 'get out'.
If the "don't knows" from the MORI survey are included, the results appear more pronounced. A total of 51 per cent voted to stay in the EU, with 39 per cent replying that they would get out and 10 per cent undecided.
Looking back through polling history, the largest majority that Eurosceptics can point to comes from a March 1980 survey, in which 71 per cent expressed a desire to 'get out'. Since 2001 the figure has largely hovered around the 50 per cent mark.
The figure of 75 per cent seems inconsistent, therefore, with other recent polls asking the same or similar questions of whether Britain should leave the EU, quite apart from the fact that it also seems to be inconsistent with other estimates made by the Daily Express.
It is this ambiguity surrounding the nature of the questions asked in the various polls and their subsequent interpretation by those featured in the Daily Express which cast doubt on the validity of the statistics and subsequent claims made that an overwhelming majority of the UK currently want to 'get out' of the EU.