Remoaners have lost their battle to derail Brexit as the public overwhelmingly backs a ‘hard’ exit from the EU. A major new study from the LSE and Oxford University shows even remain voters now generally reject the ‘soft’ Brexit policies advocated by the remoan lobby. The findings refute the often-repeated claim that Britain is deeply divided over Brexit: in reality, both leavers and remainers are broadly united behind a ‘hard’ Brexit on almost every major issue. The study, seen by BuzzFeed, shows:

• 67% of people surveyed prefer the so-called “no deal” outcome to a ‘soft’ Brexit
• 68% of people surveyed would choose a ‘hard’ Brexit over a ‘soft’ Brexit

Remain voters tend to support so-called ‘hard’ Brexit positions on most major negotiation points:

• The majority of remain voters oppose the continuation of free movement. Instead, they tend to back ‘some’ or ‘full’ control over UK borders, even if that means lower EU immigration levels than now;
• Remain voters do not want the UK to be subject to ‘all EU laws and all ECJ decisions’;
• Remain voters tend to support paying a smaller rather than larger divorce bill to the EU, and would support paying no bill at all;
• Remain voters do not support continuing massive payments to the EU;
• Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru, and Lib Dem voters only marginally preferring a ‘soft’ Brexit to a ‘no deal’ outcome (by around 60/40).

Professor Sara Hobolt of the LSE said:

“Overall… there is on aggregate higher levels of support for outcomes that resemble the ‘hard Brexit’ position put forward by the government. Remain voters are willing to acknowledge that there are key negotiation outcomes – e.g. limits to freedom of movement – that they may not like, but that these outcomes still respect the referendum vote and are therefore legitimate. In other words, Remain voters concede that the features that lead them to prefer a particular negotiation outcome do not, in fact, respect the referendum.”

The study will be seen as a bodyblow to the metropolitan remoan class whose views are evidently not shared by the country as a whole. This exposes die-hard remainers as having the extreme position relative to the ordinary population. In all but 11 of 42 possible Brexit scenarios presented to the 3,293 participants, remain and leave voters were within five percentage points of one another. Conclusive proof that the public backs Brexit…