Leave is gaining ground. But do not rule out Remain just yet

Can they? It is good: the polls dangle narrowed in recent weeks. But discover beneath the headline figures and there are causes to halt sanguine—for now, not lower than.

First, rob the ORB poll: an outlier, even by the factors of up-to-the-minute figures. Even that exhibits that more folks mediate Dwell will salvage than do Recede. That is telling. Previous elections imply that while folks disclose pollsters they notion to vote for the probability they reckon is more popularly acceptable, they mission their very savor deeper instincts onto others: so “Recede supporters” who disclose pollsters that Dwell will salvage might perchance in a roundabout blueprint vote Dwell.

2nd, hundreds and hundreds of voters remain undecided: 13% per our poll tracker. After weeks of newspaper reports dominated by Recede arguments and in a favored environment in which abet for Recede looks more acceptable than Dwell, are these voters in actuality panicked Leavers? It looks more doubtless that these not yet persuaded by either aspect will err in direction of the safer probability, Dwell, within the privateness of the polling booth.

Third, referendums just like the one on June twenty third are inclined to note more abet for the location quo than the polls that precede them. That, not lower than, became once the outcome of seven of ten recent referendums studied by Stephen Fisher and Alan Renwick, political scientists. From the vote on a Welsh Assembly in 1997 to that on a recent electoral system in 2011 or the one on Scottish independence in 2014, the pollsters dangle in most cases overstated backing for the “swap” probability.

Fourth, mediate assist to final year’s total election. The final polls attach the Tories and Labour neck-and-neck. Some even urged that the opposition became once ahead. But on the day the Conservatives won their first majority for 23 years. The headline figures, it transpired, had been a poorer guide to traditional notion than polls asking voters which party they depended on on the financial system and which chief they notion must grow to be high minister (these pointed to a Tory victory). The identical in this referendum might perchance flip out to be the salience fight between the financial system (on which Dwell leads) and immigration (on which Recede does). Polls imply that voters mute care more about the pound within the pocket than the Lithuanian within the vegetable field and, moreover, that Dwell’s lead on jobs and prosperity has grown as the advertising and marketing campaign has developed.

Fifth, in such moments—when confronted by a different between an wicked location quo and a soar into the darkish—Britons dangle, within the previous, in most cases ever chosen the latter. To defy that tradition, Recede has to disguise a vote to surrender the EU as the safer, more slight-c conservative probability. Yet here too, the polling (judging by YouGov’s tracker) suggests that the advertising and marketing campaign has failed. For all its bogus claims that Turkey will quickly join the EU, I in actuality dangle yet to discover proof that it has persuaded voters that the risks of persevering with within the membership are bigger. That most voters rightly dangle in suggestions the different sooner than them on June twenty third more fundamental than that at a total election suggests that they’ll be particularly risk-averse subsequent week.

On Sunday evening I had a conversation that I suspect typifies how undecided voters feel. I’m loath to quote taxi drivers (it feels too easy, too obtrusive a journalistic conceit) but do so now on myth of what my driver within the outskirts of Southend, on the Thames Estuary, advised me might perchance shed some light on wider attitudes. I requested him how he would vote within the referendum if positioned on the location. He spoke back, without hesitation, that he wanted Britain to Recede. Then he started talking about his existence. His Dad, a London dusky cab driver, now needed to fight off competition from immigrant Uber drivers from the EU, he complained. To this level, so Brexiteer. But as our conversation persevered, he began to mirror on his family and its future; weighing the alternatives. “The object is,” he advised me: “I in actuality dangle a roof over my head. I will just about pay my funds. £100 more a week does not mean mighty to me. But £100 much less would be unpleasant.” So I requested him: “How will you in actuality vote on June twenty third?” There became once a lengthy silence as we rumbled along the suburban Essex streets. “Don’t mediate I’d rob the risk, to be upright. I recount I’d vote Preserve.”

This became once a one-off conversation. It took order in Leigh-on-Sea, a somewhat pleased section of Southend. Yet this became once the form of order that decides elections; not rich but without a doubt not sorrowful, neither metropolis nor rural, as heart-class as working-class. Most attention-grabbing became once that a voter entertaining to disclose me, upfront, that he wanted to disappear the EU became once then perfectly pleased to pronounce the reverse once he had spent a jiffy talking about his family and their potentialities. A correct ticket for Dwell? Maybe. But, at the least, an offer that the fight is not yet misplaced.