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Fewer than one in five voters now expect Britain to secure a good Brexit deal as Theresa May’s plans remain under fire, according to damning new research.

The proportion of people expecting a good deal has slumped dramatically from 33 per cent in February last year to just 17 per cent in June 2018, the survey showed.

The data was conducted and shared ahead of the publication of the Prime Minister’s heavily criticised Chequers plan for the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

Some 57 per cent of voters now predict Britain will end talks with a bad deal, up from 37 per cent since February 2017. That’s according to the survey for NatCen Social Research.

Just over 50 per cent now expect the UK’s economy to be worse of as a result of Brexit, while just 38 per cent said Britain’s departure would mean lower immigration.

According to the new figurers, only 13 per cent said the Government had handled negotiations well so far. That’s down from 29 per cent in February last year.

Some 64 per cent said it had handled talks badly.

There was also very little support for the EU’s approach to negotiations, with 57 per cent saying Brussels had handled them badly. Only 16 per cent said it had handled them well.

The report, by polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice of Strathclyde University, found that 59 per cent of members of a NatCen panel now say they would vote Remain in a second referendum.

Just 41 per cent were backing Leave.

However, the researchers cautioned that this apparently comfortable lead for Remain may be skewed by the fact those responding reported voting against Brexit by a margin of 53-47 per cent in the 2016 referendum.

The survey found that just 81 per cent of 2016 Leave voters would back Brexit now, with 12 per cent saying they had switched to Remain. By contrast, just 6 per cent of Remain voters have changed sides, with 90 per cent sticking by their original decision.

Among those who did not vote in 2016, almost half (49 per cent) said they would now vote against Brexit, compared to 23 per cent who would back Leave in a second referendum.

"Instead of a narrow majority in favour of leaving the EU recorded in the referendum in June (2016), there might now be a narrow majority in favour of Remain, though in any second referendum much might turn on the relative propensity of Leave and Remain supporters to make it to the polling station," said the report.