Kent online polling has found a sharp shift among people who backed Leave in 2016. Of those former Leave voters in Kent, 26% now say they would vote Remain if the referendum were held again.
Out of 1,350 people questioned, 57.1% said they would vote Remain, while 30.6% said they would back Leave and 12.3% were unsure or would not vote. The figures matter because Leave won 59.2% of the ballot in Kent in 2016, so the new poll points to a county that now leans the other way on the same question.
Richard Whitman on Kent Leave
Professor Richard Whitman of the University of Kent said the findings suggest attitudes have shifted markedly over the past decade. He said, "The public mind has altered quite significantly from where we were," and added, "I think it's quite a significant switch, particularly if you think that Leave voters tended to be very motivated, they tended to be very concerned to see quite a significant change of direction."
The poll suggests the biggest movement came from former Leave voters rather than former Remain voters. Among people who voted Leave in 2016, 68.2% said they would make the same choice again, while 26% said they would now vote Remain. Among former Remain voters, 93.4% said they would vote the same way again and 4.6% said they would switch to Leave.
More than 1,300 people
KentOnline and KMTV carried out the exclusive poll of 1,350 people after journalists travelled the length and breadth of Kent over the past two months, speaking to more than 1,300 people in town centres, high streets and communities. Respondents ranged in age from 16 to 95, and of those who disclosed their gender, 50.8% were women and 49.2% were men.
The age split also points in one direction: almost seven in 10 people aged between 16 and 34 said they would vote Remain, while 10.8% said they would support Leave. Whitman said, "It's always very difficult to do a U-turn on your own beliefs, isn’t it?" and "I think it is significant that people will have done that degree of a reversal."
He added that "perhaps it's also significant that three quarters of people haven't changed their mind" — a reminder that the shift is real, but not universal. The poll was published on the 10th anniversary of the referendum vote, and it leaves Kent with a striking split between a county that voted Leave by 59.2% in 2016 and a new snapshot showing Remain ahead.
