I recently attended an excellent panel discussion by the Wales Governance Centre, which is run by researchers from Cardiff University’s School of Politics, entitled “Brexit: Three Years On” .

One of the speakers – Professor Roger Scully – gave a fascinating talk on what the polling data has shown since before the 2016 referendum up to the present date. It has shown remarkable stability – albeit with a slight, but statistically small, shift towards staying – in that both individuals and the aggregate appear to have become more entrenched in their beliefs as time as passed.

I contacted Professor Scully with regards to a thought that occurred to me after the event. The thought was that the words “Leave” and “Remain” have come to be used as synonyms for “Discontent” and “Content”. I asked Professor Scully about what data is available on the British public’s level of contentment with the EU. He advised that I look for research conducted by the political scientist Sir John Curtice who is one of the UK’s leading polling experts.

This led me to a fascinating report, authored by Sir John, entitled “How deeply does Britain’s Euroscepticism run?” which presented data, up to 2015, on public attitudes towards the EU.

Some data tables which caught my attention are presented below.

I note, before continuing my main thoughts, that some might object that the sample sizes here cannot be representative of the UK or Scottish population as a whole given that the populations run into the millions while the samples are on the order of thousands. This issue is mitigated by the random probability sampling procedure that Sir John employs as part of his role with the Social Research organisation NatCen. It ensures, roughly, that each person is equally likely to appear in the sample and that they are chosen independently of other people. This sampling procedure provides some assurance as to the statistical reliability of the results obtained.

I recognise that this data is a few years outdated but, given the entrenchment of attitudes, I think it is reasonable to assume that this data is still fairly representative of the public view. The data presented above seem to suggest that around 65% of the British public have misgivings with the giving up of powers to the EU. We know now, from the referendum result, that some of those who answered “Stay in the EU but reduce its powers” must have changed their mind to “Withdraw from the EU”.

It would appear then, from this data, that a significant proportion of those who voted to stay must want some powers devolved from the EU back to the national governments. The major issue for these individuals is that, on the whole, mainland Europe (at least its leadership) supports further enlargement as opposed to the devolution of powers.

Let’s consider the situation – which is still not impossible however unlikely or implausible – then where the UK abandons its position and stays in the EU. It’s reasonable to suppose that further enlargement would occur, or at least devolution of powers would not happen. This – presumably – would result in some concluding that the aims they seek will not be forthcoming and thus come to support withdrawing from the EU. This would create greater Euroscepticism within Britain so making the decision to withdraw virtually inevitable at some point in time. It is just that this decision has occurred sooner than many might have expected. The data also suggest that any revocation of Article 50 would have to be contingent upon EU agreement to some devolution of powers in order to prevent this situation from occurring further on in time. This is only plausible under the controversial situation of a second referendum with very specific questions being asked (to avoid the “people did not know what they were voting for” cliche) including the options: (1) Withdraw with no deal, (2) Withdraw with May’s deal, (3) Withdraw with a renegotiated deal, (4) Stay subject to some conditions that must be met in some time limit, (5) Stay with no substantive changes, (6) Stay and give more powers to the EU. Too many options!

The figures for Scotland are broadly similar to the UK wide figures although there is marginally more support for giving up more powers to the EU. These differences, presumably, were reflected in Scotland’s overall Stay position in the referendum. This more complete breakdown of the Scottish people’s views on the EU seems to have been neglected in the discussions surrounding their hypothetical separatism from the UK.