NatCen: I’ll have what she’s having: Scots share PM’s vision for Brexit deal

30 March 2017

Despite voting very differently in the EU Referendum, a new report from the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) reveals that when it comes to the UK government’s Brexit deal Scottish voters have largely similar expectations to voters across Britain as a whole.

The NatCen survey, carried out as part of the ESRC-funded What UK Thinks project, found that Scottish voters almost unanimously support keeping free trade with the EU after Brexit but that they are less keen on maintaining freedom of movement. In this their views are similar to those of voters across Britain as a whole and to the stance taken by the UK government, but are at odds with the Scottish Government’s support for freedom of movement.

• 93% of Scots are in favour of maintaining free trade with the European Union after Brexit, slightly higher than the 88% across Britain as whole who support this.
• 64% of Scottish voters want EU immigrants to be treated in the same way as non-EU immigrants, only slightly lower than the 68% of Britons who say this.
• Similarly, 72% of Scottish voters think that British people who want to move to EU countries should have to go through the same processes as non-EU migrants. This is much the same as the 70% of British voters who are in favour of this.

While Remain voters in Scotland are much less likely than Leave supporters to back immigration control, a half or more are in favour of ending freedom of movement:

• 82% of Leave voters want EU immigrants to be treated in the same way as non-EU immigrants. 53% of Remain voters agree.
• Similarly, 86% of Leave voters think that British people who want to move to EU countries should have to go through the same processes as non-EU migrants. 61% of Scottish Remain voters agree. [...]

But Scots more willing to trade immigration control for free trade

However, voters in Scotland are rather more likely than voters across the whole of Britain to accept that people from the EU should be allowed to come to the UK to live and work in return for British companies being able to trade freely in the EU.

As many as 61% of Scots say that Britain should ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ allow free movement of people in return for free trade with the EU, compared with 54% across Britain who say this. Only 37% of Scottish voters say that it ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ should not, compared with 44% of voters in Britain.  

Little appetite for a distinctive deal for Scotland

One possible alternative to Scotland leaving the EU “against its will” put forward by the Scottish Government is that Scotland may be able to secure a distinctive deal with different rules on immigration and free trade from the rest of the UK. The survey reveals that there is relatively little support for this: almost two-thirds (62%) of Scottish voters think that after Brexit the rules on trade and immigration should be the same in Scotland as they are in the rest of the UK.

However, significant minorities would support making it easier for businesses and people to come to Scotland compared to the rest of the UK:

• Around a third (34%) of Scots say that after Brexit the rules on trade should make it easier for an EU company to do business in Scotland than in England and Wales; just 2% believe they should make it harder.
• A quarter (25%) say that rules on immigration after Brexit should make it easier for someone from the EU to live and work in Scotland than in England and Wales; only 12% think they should make it harder. [...]

Full results

© NatCen