It has been a difficult couple of days for the Remain campaign. David Cameron has faced voter backlash in a television debate on Brexit, and two polls have revealed that Britain is in favour of leaving the European Union.
YouGov has reportedly polled 3,495 people for breakfast television show ITV’s Good Morning Britain and found that 45% of voters want to leave the EU, with 11% undecided. This comes just a day after the latest Observer/Opinium poll showed that Leave campaign had a 43% majority over a 40% share for Remain.
The prospect of Britain leaving the EU was enough to push sterling down against both the dollar and the euro – giving up the gains it made on Friday following the poor jobs figures from the US.
Jeremy Cook, Chief Economist, at World First said that sterling and Brexit remained at odds but with three weeks still to go it was still anyone’s to win.
“Leave have the momentum and opinion polls are frankly a mess; the differential between online and telephone polling has broken down,” he said. “Given the level of campaigning, which has been abysmal, it is no surprise that polling is so confused; the electorate is confused and I think polls are showing more of an off-the-cuff-which-way-the-wind-is-blowing-at-this-particular-moment voting intention, rather than longer held beliefs. In this atmosphere momentum is key; the Remain camp has to get agitated.”
Darren Ruane, Head of Fixed Interest at Investec Wealth & Investment, said the recent fall in sterling followed a period of significant weakness losing around 10% from December to mid-April, as investors began to focus on the Brexit debate, and then strength rising 6% for six weeks, as the Leave campaign failed to find traction.
“Although bookmakers’ odds continue to show a victory for the Remain campaign, any signs that the vote’s result is closer than previously predicted is likely to affect the UK’s currency by the greatest amount relative to other asset classes,” he said. “Currencies are often good barometers of international investors’ confidence in the economic outlook for a country.”
FTSE Unaffected by Brexit Poll
Conversely the FTSE 100 opened 54 points higher this morning, and retained gains in morning trading, up 60 points to 12.30pm. This is unsurprising considering the global nature of the revenues from the blue chip index – with 70% of FTSE 100 sales and business happening overseas.
The FTSE 100 was pushed higher mostly by financial and mining stocks, the latter buoyed by the oil price reaching $50 a barrel again this morning.
