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UK Voter Preferences on Brexit and the Legitimacy of Suspending Parliament

最准的六合彩论坛 survey of 3,000 voters, with Yougov fieldwork, examining the legitimacy of suspending Parliament.

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30 January 2020

Grant


骋谤补苍迟:听Ad-hoc
Year awarded:聽2019-20
Amount awarded:聽拢5,280

Academics


  • Professor Christina Pagel, 最准的六合彩论坛 CORU, Mathematical and Physical Sciences
  • Christabel Cooper, Sensible Analytics

In September 2019, 最准的六合彩论坛 Grand Challenges (GCCU) funded a survey of 3,000 representative UK voters (with YouGov) around the legitimacy of the Prime Minister blocking or suspending parliament. Respondents were presented with two scenarios: one where the Prime Minister suspends Parliament (or take other measures) to ensure we leave with No-Deal against Parliament鈥檚 wishes, and one where the Prime Minister suspends Parliament (or takes other measures) to revoke Article 50 and force the UK to remain in the EU against Parliament鈥檚 wishes. For each scenario, voters were asked which of the PM鈥檚 actions were acceptable. Crucially, we randomised the order in which respondents saw the scenarios.

The survey found that the country is very evenly split between those who think it is acceptable to suspend Parliament (or take other measures) to ensure we leave with No-Deal聽and those who do not. Respondents were asked聽to imagine the reverse scenario in which a Remain-supporting Prime Minister聽was trying to force through revocation of Article 50 against the wishes of MPs and found that this was deemed unacceptable by both Leavers and Remainers.

The research also showed that the order in which the scenarios are presented makes a statistically significant difference to whether Leave voters think the suspension of Parliament for No-Deal is acceptable or not. Leave voters who saw the 鈥淩evoke鈥 scenario first were less likely to think the 鈥淣o-Deal鈥 scenario was acceptable. In other words, reminding Leave voters that measures such as the suspension of Parliament could be used to engineer outcomes they don鈥檛 like caused some of them to think again about whether this was a good idea. The research demonstrates that reminding people that the constitution limits the powers of all sides to do what they want, results in a more positive attitude to those constitutional limits.

Outputs and Impact


  • (YouGov)

    Articles by the researchers
  • 聽- politics.co.uk聽