Research showed that majority would be willing to pay for Brexit with the breakup of the United Kingdom.
With the Conservative party still deciding on their next leader, it’s clear that the issue of Brexit has become the main focus of the discussion, as seen by the recent Channel 4 debate.
Brexit has seen two successive Conservative prime ministers stand down from office and with UK politics at such a crucial juncture, a recent poll by YouGov makes for interesting reading.
As you may be aware, YouGov is an authoritative measure of public opinion and consumer behaviour and their recent research is extremely interesting, especially in relation to how it subverts traditional loyalties and rhetoric.
When asked if they would like to see Brexit take place, even if it led to Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom, 63% and 59% respectively of Tory party members said yes. Effectively, they would be willing to pay for Brexit with the breakup of the United Kingdom.
Of course, this is all hypothetical because under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, any decision for Northern Ireland to leave the UK and form a united Ireland has to be approved by the electorate in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
However, it’s interesting that Conservative members fear the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister more than the breakup of the UK.
More than half (51%) of those party members surveyed also said that they would rather call Brexit off than allow the Labour leader to reside at 10 Downing Street.
Aside from this, almost half (46%) would be happy to see the Brexit Party’s Nigel Farage as the new leader of the Conservatives.
YouGov’s Matthew Smith said: “Conservative members are not just ideologically committed to Brexit – they also genuinely believe that the failure to deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum will bring about the destruction of the party’s electoral chances.
“Indeed, half of members believe that Britain ending up staying in the EU after all would damage the party to the extent that it will never lead a government again, and another 29 per cent think it would put the party out of power for multiple elections to come. By contrast, most members believe that successfully bringing about Brexit will win the Tories at least the next election.”
More detailed information on the research can be found here.
So committed to Brexit are members of the Conservative and Unionist Party that they would be willing to see Scotland (63%) and Northern Ireland (59%) leave the UK in order to secure it. https://t.co/9iJKlB292v pic.twitter.com/4j7bCPg6aK
— YouGov (@YouGov) June 18, 2019
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