LONDON (Reuters) – Two polls yesterday showed voters were still closely divided over whether to end Britain’s European Union membership, a day after another survey put the ‘Leave’ campaign 10 points ahead, underlining the contradictory polling less than two weeks before the referendum.
The pound weakened by as much as 1.2 per cent against the US dollar immediately after an ORB poll for the Independent newspaper, showing a sharp swing toward a vote for Britain to exit the EU, was published on Friday evening.
Betting odds on Brexit also shortened after the survey, conducted on June 8 and 9, putting the ‘Leave’ camp 10 points ahead of ‘Remain,’ the latest in a run of polls to show rising support for a British exit from the EU.
But two surveys published on Saturday showed divergent results with one giving a two-point lead to supporters of Britain’s EU membership and a second poll showing those in favour of Brexit were one point ahead.
Britons will vote in a June 23 referendum on whether to leave the world’s largest free trade area, a decision with far-reaching implications for politics, the economy and trade but contrasting polls have made it difficult to predict the outcome.
An Opinium poll for the Observer newspaper, conducted between June 7 and 10, suggested 44 per cent of Britons back continued membership of the bloc with 42 per cent against and 13 per cent undecided.
Both camps rose 1 per cent compared to last week’s poll, which was re-weighted to reduce the impact of a disproportionate number of socially conservative voters.
But a YouGov poll for The Sunday Times showed support for Brexit on 43 per cent with those who wish to remain part of the 28-member trading bloc on 42 percent, a reversal on the previous survey released on Monday.
Contradictory opinion polls and a failure to predict last year’s outright election victory for Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives have led financial markets to pay close attention to bookmakers’ odds
