The Farage Paradox part II: Support for EU membership at highest level since 1991

Back in May, we pointed out the so-called 'Farage Paradox' - even as the party came first in the European elections in the UK and Farage himself was widely seen as having bested Nick Clegg in their TV debates, support for leaving the EU had fallen to its lowest level for a long time according to Ipsos-MORI with 37% in favour of Brexit and 54% in support of staying in.

A few months later and UKIP is still riding high in the polls with a victory in the Clacton by-election under its belt and with the Tories on the run in Rochester and Strood - amid all kinds of noise around EU migration. However, on the wider EU question, support for membership has climbed even higher - today's Ipsos-MORI poll has support for membership at 56% - its highest since 1991!! - with support for leaving on 36%.

It's not entirely easy to nail down the drivers behind the trend - even the UK's public defeat over the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission President hasn't reversed it but one possibility could be that as the prospect of exit becomes more real, especially in the wake of the Scottish referendum, people are more likely to go with the 'better the devil you know' option. Another explanation is that Farage is good at stirring up support in concentrated parts of the country, but his divisive rhetoric turns others off. A feel-good factor over the economy (through as we've argued before, this can cut both ways) combined with increased uncertainty around the world - making the status quo look safer and club membership more attractive - could be other reasons.

Either way, it shows that even as UKIP find a way of tapping into disenchantment with the EU and mainstream UK politics, they are failing to convince  people that they have the right remedies and this risks derailing the broader 'out campaign, as the pro-Bexit Tory MP Michael Fabricant has warned:

"The out team will be very different, with no leader who commands popular support. Before you can even make the case for Britain becoming a mid-Atlantic economic hub, freed from the shackles of Brussels diktats, the Eurosceptics will be all over the place. No clear leader, and angry looking grey men who have been arguing the toss on Europe for years, will fail to impress. Yes, Nigel Farage is clearly the most charismatic Eurosceptic in years, but does anyone really imagine Farage being the Alex Salmond of the out campaign? Would he be persuasive enough to seduce a nation?"

However, it is worth bearing in mind that other polls have slightly different outcomes. Today's YouGov poll for the Times' red box showed lower levels of support for EU membership - support for membership is roughly the same under their 'major changes' scenario as under Ipsos-Mori's status quo scenario (YouGov's status quo option assumes renegotiation was attempted but failed to secure even modest changes, so can't be directly compared with the Ipsos-MORI one).

This shows that even if some polls suggest a majority of Brits would vote to stay in no matter what, EU reform and renegotiation remains by far the best option for any UK government. 

As has been noted before, that's why some Better Off Outers are now starting to fear that long sought after In/Out referendum - in itself an ironic development. 

The Farage Paradox: UKIP on the rise but so is public support for EU membership

Poll watchers in the last few years would have seen many polls showing a majority of Brits would vote 'out' in a referendum of the UK's membership of the EU. In the last few months this trend has been slowly reversing, and a new Ipsos-MORI poll out today shows that if a referendum were held right now, 54% would vote to stay in - the highest support for the EU for a few years - and 37% would vote to leave.

Why is this the case? The most obvious factor is the improving economic situation in both the UK and (most of) the eurozone. Another factor could be that as the EU debate has become more prominent, it has forced people to consider the issue and come down on one side or the other - it is notable that only 10% say they don't know how they would vote.

Likewise, the concerted focus on EU reform primarily by the Conservatives but also to a lesser extent by Labour and the Lib Dems may have reassured voters that the EU may be moving in the right direction. This has also involved much sharper and clearer communication by David Cameron of what kind of EU reforms he will prioritise, as well as high profile interventions by EU politicians calling on the UK to stay in and emphasising the UK's importance to the EU.

The irony is that the upswing in support is happening at exactly the same time that UKIP is riding high in the national polls and could well come first in next week's European elections, and UKIP leader Nigel Farage was widely seen as having beaten Nick Clegg in the EU debates. These figures lend credence to the theory put out by some including British Future's Sunder Katwala that while Farage is effective at maximising the UKIP vote, his message and rhetoric, including the overwhelmingly negative focus on immigration, is actually a turn-off for potential supporters of a UK exit (Douglas Carswell has also made this point).

Second Clegg/Farage debate highlights that the EU status quo is indefensible

The majority of the UK public was not represented at last night's debate

The second EU debate between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage was an altogether more scrappy and bad-tempered affair with more personal attacks and fewer statbombs being thrown about. 

The polls hand Farage a clear victory - 68%/27% in the Sun/YouGov poll and 69%/31% in the Guardian/ICM poll - a more comprehensive margin than last week.

So clearly a bad evening for Nick Clegg, although the calculations of the Lib Dem strategists seems to be that the combination of the additional exposure and full-throated defence of the EU will allow the party to pick up some extra votes in May's European elections.

However, it remains to be seen what the longer term repercussions of the debates will be. It was striking that, over the course of two hours, Clegg had virtually nothing to say about the EU's flaws and failings and what reforms he'd like to see. Indeed, in response to a question from the audience about how the EU would look in 10 years' time, he said that it would look "quite similar to what it is now". Given what is happening in the eurozone, which will indirectly also affect the UK's position in the EU (something Clegg has himself mentioned on previous occasions), this is simply not credible. It also completely dismisses the public appetite for EU reform.

What is interesting is that, despite Farage's overwhelming victory in the debate, the Sun/YouGov before/after poll showed that public opinion on the In/Out question remained pretty finely balanced. Before the debate there was a small majority in favour of staying in the EU - 48% compared with 42% in favour of leaving - after the debate this was reversed slightly with 45% in favour of staying in and 48% in favour of leaving.

Polling has consistently shown that when the public are offered options that go beyond the binary in/out question, the majority of the public fall between the Clegg and Farage positions, with a far larger constituency in favour of staying in a reformed/slimmed down EU.

People hold different views about how they would like to see the European Union develop. Which of these statements comes closest to your view? (click to enlarge)

Source: YouGov poll for Open Europe, February 2014

Clegg's decision to talk only to the limited number of 'in no matter what' voters might be a clever Lib Dem 'core vote' strategy but it will turn off many swing voters in any future In campaign. All the more reason for politicians to represent the view held by the majority of voters and to test the limits of EU reform before forcing them to choose between In or Out.

Fact-checking the Clegg v Farage EU debate

The first EU debate between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage on LBC was for the most part restrained with a surprising amount of detail and substance. Most of the key fault lines in the UK-EU relationship were touched on.

However, given that the two men represent the polarising ends of the debate, there were also a number of claims that struggled in the accuracy department. Here is our quick 'fact-check' of the key debating points:

Claim - Clegg: I supported a referendum on Lisbon

Verdict: Technically true but highly misleading

On the referendum question, Clegg said that when it came to new EU Treaties transferring new powers to Brussels,

"I've never wavered in that position, that's why the last time the rules changed, something called the Lisbon Treaty, I said there should be a referendum."

It is true that the Liberal Democrats called for referendum on Lisbon but crucially it was an in/out referendum which was not on the agenda at the time - the issue wasn't even put to put to a vote. There was however a vote on whether to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty itself on which the party abstained, despite the fact that together Tory MPs, Lib Dem MPs and Labour rebels could have passed it. Clegg is being highly disingenuous by blurring the distinction between an in/out referendum and a treaty specific one. Farage's quip that there was no point waiting for a new Treaty as powers were being transferred to the EU every week via directives and ECJ rulings was quite effective in this context.

Claim - Farage: Under EU rules we have a completely open door to 485 million Europeans 

Verdict - Partially true but unclear on the numbers

It is true that the free movement of labour is a fundamental principle of the EU and the UK cannot limit the numbers of EU migrants coming over. However, Clegg was right to point out that the right to free movement is not completely unqualified - under the free movement directive migrants have to be able to support themselves financially or have 'reasonable' prospects of finding a job.

In terms of Farage's 485 million figure though we have to say we are a bit confused as to where exactly this comes from - the population of the EU28 is around 506 million, which minus the UK's approximately 63 million leaves 443 million.

Claim - Clegg: 3 million jobs would be at risk if UK left the EU

Verdict - Highly unlikely - would depend on a range of other factors

Clegg cited the well-worn '3 million jobs linked to the EU figure' despite established doubts over its veracity. Recently those tending to cite this number have replaced "depend on" with "linked to" but it's still dubious. As we've argued in the past, this claim is one of the most conspicuous examples of a rogue statistic without any credible counter-factual attached to it. The assumptions behind the 3 million jobs figure is that there would be no trade at all trade with Europe if the UK left the EU, which of course is nonsense -  a similarly heroic assumption to that which Better Off Outers make when calculating the cost of EU membership based on all regulatory cost magically disappearing on Day 2 post-Brexit.

Claim - Farage: UK would hold the whip hand in negotiations over a new trade deal with the EU

Verdict - Very uncertain 

Farage argued that in the event of an exit, the UK would "hold the whip hand" in trade negotiations with the EU due to the EU's trade deficit with the UK. We've looked at this in detail - the key point is that while this is true in the area of goods, when it comes to services - a crucial and thriving area of the UK economy - this is not the case. So with that logic, EU countries would have incentive to strike a deal with the UK in goods but not services including financial services. Secondly, the process for leaving the EU - the so-called Article 50 - actually involves less control for the UK than is often assumed, including a Qualified Majority Vote on the final deal in which the UK will not take part.

Claim - Farage: 75% of UK laws come from the EU. Clegg: no it's 7%

Verdict - Both are wrong

The contentious topic of how exactly how many UK laws are derived from the EU also came up, with Farage gleefully citing Viviane Reding's absurd claim that 75% of UK laws are decided in Brussels (as we've argued many times, Reding must secretly be on the UKIP payroll). Clegg went with the House of Commons' Library's briefing which estimated this to be around 7%. Regular readers will know we've analysed this in painful detail and the truth is it is simply not possible to say exactly - what's clear is that it's neither 7% (this only counts primary legislation which isn't meaningful at all) nor 75%. (But basically too many).

Claim - Farage: We give the EU £55 million per day

Verdict - True if counting gross cost, untrue and misleading if counting net cost

Farage is correct that the UK's contribution to the EU works out as around £55 million per day. However, that it is a gross figure which does not include the UK rebate (cold, hard cash the UK gets back from Brussels every year) and nor the UK's receipts from the EU budget (even if this is only UK taxpayers' cash being re-routed via Brussels).

Claim - Clegg: Without the EAW we'd struggle to extradite criminals and terrorists

Verdict - The EAW makes the process faster but it is not indispensable

The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is used by EU states to speed up extradition procedures. It is true that the EAW has been used by the UK to recover suspected terrorists and other criminals from other EU states who have subsequently been found guilty and locked up. It is however untrue to claim that suspects such Hussain Osman and Jeremy Forrest could not have been recovered without it. Also before the EAW was agreed, there were agreement on extradition and the UK managed to successfully extradite plenty of criminals from EU countries through bilateral procedures. These were considerably slower but it is highly unlikely that with or without the EAW Italy would have wanted to hang on to Hussain Osman or France to Jeremy Forrest.

Who won the Cleggv Farage EU debate?

The much hyped debate between UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has made the Westminister village buzz.

So who won? The headlines give it to Farage on the basis of the instant YouGov poll commissioned by the Sun which found that 57% believed Farage had “performed better overall” in the debate, 36% believed that Clegg had won (7% said they didn't know).

A decisive victory then? Well LBC's twitter 'worm' had Farage only just edging it, and there was a general consensus among the Westminster village punditry that Clegg had emerged as the winner.

However, the poll also found that after the debate 47% believed Britain should stay in the EU – down from 48% before – while 44% wanted to leave – up from 42% before the debate. This means that even a substantial number of those who want to stay in the EU believed Farage had performed better than Clegg which has to be a worry for the 'in at all costs camp'. Moreover, the poll also found that following the debate, the number of people who believed leaving would be “good for jobs in Britain” rose from 28% to 34%.

Finally, the big omission from the debate was any substantial discussion of EU reform which we've argued will be key to swinging public opinion in favour of staying in. Will the post debate polling lead Team Clegg to focus more heavily on this in Round II on the BBC next week? Let's hope so.