EU referendum: polls suggest result too close to call

The latest poll, by Survation, shows 45 per cent in favour of Britain remaining in the EU and 44 per cent opposed.

The telephone poll for IG, a spread betting firm, was carried out on Friday and Saturday, after the killing of Labour MP and Remain supporter Jo Cox, and published today.

A previous Survation telephone poll for the Mail on Sunday gave Remain a three point lead (45-42 per cent).

An ORB telephone poll of 800 people for the Daily Telegraph today has support for Remain at 53 per cent among those who say they will definitely vote, with 46 per cent backing Leave. A previous poll by ORB, published last week, had Leave ahead by one point.

‘Down to the wire’

“All the signs of ORB’s latest and final poll point to a referendum that will truly come down to the wire,” said Sir Lynton Crosby, a political strategist who advised the Conservatives at the last election.

A YouGov online poll of 1,652 people for the Times today has Leave on 44 per cent and Remain on 42 per cent. Its previous poll for the Sunday Times gave Remain a one point lead.

A poll from the NatCen social research organisation, which was published on Monday and mainly carried out online, saw Remain on 53 per cent and Leave on 47 per cent.

‘Knife-edge’

But most of the polling of 1,632 people was carried out in May and NatCen said the result was “on a knife-edge”. Six more polls are due to be published in the coming days.

Last week, a series of polls put Leave in the lead. But bookmakers’ odds were still reflecting an expected Remain victory then and this has now hardened, with Betfair suggesting that the likelihood of a vote to stay in the EU has risen from 60 to 72 per cent.

Despite these odds, there is uncertainty in the City about the outcome, with JPMorgan researcher Malcolm Barr saying in a note to clients: “We will go into the vote without high confidence in predicting the outturn in either direction.”

In his latest blog, Peter Kellner, former president of YouGov, said “it does seem that the surge to Leave around 10 days ago has been reversed”, but it was unclear whether Remain had a “narrow” or “comfortable” lead.

Mr Kellner said of seven online polls conducted in the last 10 days, five had shown Leave leads. During the same perod, of seven telephone polls, Remain was ahead in four.