UK in a Changing Europe: Public wrong on key facts around Brexit and impact of EU membership, new study finds

28 October 2018

The British public are wrong on key facts around Brexit and the UK’s relationship with the EU, a new study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, in partnership with Ipsos MORI and the UK in a Changing Europe, finds.

The study takes findings from the recent government-commissioned Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) report and tests these against public perceptions, alongside other facts:

• EU immigrants’ contribution to public finances: Only 29% of the public correctly think that immigrants from European countries pay £4.7bn more in taxes than they receive in welfare benefits and services. Leave supporters are least likely to correctly identify that this is the case (16%) and most likely to wrongly think that European immigrants contribute less than they take out (42%).
• Crime: 56% of the public and 75% of Leave supporters think that European immigration has increased crime levels, when evidence from the MAC report finds no link.
• Healthcare: 39% of the public and 53% of Leave supporters think that European immigration has led to a decline in the quality of healthcare services in the UK, when evidence from the MAC report shows this isn’t the case.
• £350m claim: Two-thirds of the public (67%) have heard of the claim that the UK sends £350m a week to the EU, and 42% of these believe it is true, despite it being labelled a “misuse of statistics” by the UK Statistics Authority.
• EU investment: The public hugely underestimate how much of our investment comes from EU countries: the average guess is 36%, when the actual figure was 63% in 2016.
• Unemployment: Half of the public (47%) and 61% of Leave supporters believe that unemployment among lower-skilled workers has increased as a result of European immigration, despite the MAC report concluding there is “little or no impact”.
• Immigration levels: People overestimate the proportion of the UK population that is from an EU country by a factor of almost three, thinking it’s 16% when it’s only 6%.

But there are three facts the public are much more accurate on:

• They guess that 40% of UK exports go to EU countries, when the actual figure is 43%.
• The largest group (47%) correctly identify that European immigration has increased house prices.
• They correctly think that European immigration has had relatively little impact on unemployment among highly skilled workers and the wage levels of both lower-skilled and higher-skilled workers.

Full study

© UK in a Changing Europe