Confidence in Brexit negotiations concluded successfully has hit rock bottom, poll suggests

Public confidence in Brexit seems to have hit rock bottom, according to new research.

Research from ICM suggests that the number of people who think Brexit negotiations will conclude satisfactorily is the lowest it has been since it started quizzing them on the topic.

The polling company asked just over 2,000 people whether they think negotiations will conclude successfully before March 29th, 2019 – Brexit Day.

Just 28% said they thought they would – down from 35% in December 2017 and 30% in October 2017.

At the same time, the proportion of people who think they will not conclude satisfactorily rose from 45% in October 2017 to 47% in April 2018, despite a drop in December 2017 taking it to 39%.

The number of people who said they “don’t know” has remained around the same, at 25% in October 2017, 26% in December 2017 and 25% in April 2018.

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Alex Turk, Research Manager at ICM Unlimited, said: “Our latest Guardian/ICM poll suggests that the public are increasingly sceptical that negotiations will conclude successfully before 29th March 2019.

“We’ve asked this question twice before (in October and December 2017), but this weekend’s poll show the lowest proportion of the public believing that negotiations will conclude successfully before Brexit Day (28%, down from 35% in December), with 47% believing they will not conclude successfully (up from 39%).”

But he said despite the public perception of the likelihood of an on-time and successful conclusion to the negotiations in the poll, there is a “glimmer of light” for the current Conservative government.

“Put quite simply, it does not look like the British public are enamoured with the alternatives to the Conservative government,” he said.

“Despite the negative results shown above, the Conservatives maintain their vote share on our headline vote intention polling on 42%, with Labour dropping two percentage points to 39%.

“This leaves a Conservative lead of 3% which, while small, matches the biggest lead for either party observed on our regular Guardian/ICM polls since the 2017 election in our second poll last month.

“This ties in with other results we’ve seen over the past few months, which suggest that Brexit is emerging as a ‘lose-lose’ situation for politicians. Most of our Brexit polling questions have been met with an overall negative response, although it’s hard to tell what viable alternatives the electorate would prefer as a whole would prefer at this time.”

ICM Unlimited interviewed a representative online sample of 2,026 adults aged 18+, between 27th – 29th April 2018. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.