NI survey on Brexit: Stay vote at 69%

It’s almost two years since Northern Ireland voted 56% to 44% to stay in the European Union. The United Kingdom voted 52% to 48% to leave. As the unnecessary consequences of Brexit, economic, social and political, became evident, those figures were likely to change. And so they have.

A Queen’s University survey has found that opposition in the North to Brexit has hardened and that 69% of the North’s population would vote against divorce today. That only 31% still want to quit must undermine the DUP’s determination to see Brexit realised.

The prospect of a new hard border must have influenced these figures, as did the inconsistency of Britain’s negotiating positions. The survey must provoke the obvious question — what would a full survey on Brexit show today, now that the lies and online parroting of the ‘Leave’ faction have been exposed? That question is sharpened by the fact that 2016’s 4% margin seems far too slim to facilitate such fundamental change. That the most strident ‘Leavers’ vehemently oppose a second vote seems to be the most revealing answer.