Global Vision/ICM European Union Survey

Poll on British attitudes to the EU

In January 2008 Global Vision commissioned an ICM poll on the public's views on British attitudes to the EU and whether there should be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

The respondents were, on balance, greatly in favour of the British Government, rather than the EU, controlling policy in a wide range of areas.

The balance of those preferring the British Government minus those favouring the EU was especially marked in the areas of employment (with a balance of 80%), immigration (67%), defence (64%), economic development (61%), and farming and fisheries (58%). But even with the other policies, the balances favouring the British Government were strongly positive: trade (48%), foreign affairs (44%) and foreign aid (35%). And it should be noted that even with foreign aid the ratio of those favouring the British Government over those favouring the EU was more than 2 to 1. There were very few (around 3%) don't knows.

A large majority favoured a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. 74% wanted the referendum, whilst only 17% didn't.

Consistent with all our previous polling, when people are given a three-way choice of staying in the EU, withdrawing, or changing the relationship to trade and cooperation, the last (the "third way") was easily the option of choice. 21% wanted to stay in, 24% wanted to withdraw and 50% wanted a new, looser relationship.

Results

Question 1: For each of the following policy areas, do you think they should be controlled by the EU or the British government? % replies

	Foreign affairs	Defence	Economic development	Trade	Farming & fisheries	Immigration	Foreign aid	Employment
(i) EU	25	15	17	23	18	15	29	8
(ii) British Government	69	79	78	71	76	82	64	88
(iii) Neither	3	2	3	3	3	2	3	2
(iv) Don't know	3	4	3	3	3	2	4	2
Balance (i) - (ii)	44	64	61	48	58	67	35	80

Question 2: Tony Blair promised a referendum on the EU Constitutional Treaty. The current Prime Minister Gordon Brown is planning to pass the new Treaty in to British law, without a referendum. Do you think there should or should not be a referendum?

	% replies
(i) Should	74
(ii) Should not	17
(iii) Don't know	10
Balance (i) - (ii)	57

Question 3: If the UK could have the ideal relationship with Europe, which of the following would you yourself prefer?

	% replies
(i) The UK staying a full EU member on current terms, participating in further integration	21
(ii) The UK having a looser arrangement with Europe, maintaining free trade and cooperation on common policies, but opting out of political and economic union	50
(iii) Withdrawing from the EU altogether	24
(iv) None of these	1
(v) Don't know	5

Download the full ICM Poll

Technical note: These polls were conducted by ICM Research on behalf of Global Vision. The fieldwork, on 1014 respondents, was conducted on 23-24 January 2008.

RL, February 2008