UK: Opinion poll turns in favour of ‘Leave’ - MUFG

Derek Halpenny, European Head of GMR at MUFG, suggests that the UK press this morning is full of the reference from the IMF yesterday that a ‘Brexit’ for the UK would “pose major challenges” and could do “severe regional and global damage by disrupting established trading relationships”.

Key Quotes

“So far the pound is holding up reasonably well and for sure the broader financial market conditions and the reduced upward pressure on the US dollar since the Fed’s policy shift have helped stabilise the GBP/USD rate as well.

Worryingly though, the latest ICM poll released yesterday revealed the largest gap in favour of the ‘Leave’ campaign ever conducted by ICM. The ‘Leave’ campaign managed 45% of the vote with 42% for ‘Remain’.

We haven’t managed to see the exact dates for this survey but it no doubt captures in part the difficult week PM Cameron has had over the Panama offshore investment papers. That’s the problem for the ‘Remain’ campaign – its vulnerable to any bad political news for the PM whether connected to the EU referendum or not.

Furthermore, perhaps the Dutch ‘No’ vote is encouraging some to take an anti-EU stance here too. The Poll of Polls we track from ‘whatukthinks.org’ shows it evenly tied at 50% each. It’s the longest period of being tied at 50% since the Poll of Polls began last September.”