The EU referendum is dividing political parties, friends, families and now – according to the best estimates – Greater Manchester.
Little in the way of detailed local polling has been carried out ahead of Thursday, so the M.E.N. has compiled some of the available data and research available.
All of it should come with a huge caveat: these really are only estimates.
Nevertheless there is a common thread running through all of it.
Manchester, Stockport and Trafford – particularly Manchester – are all found to be the most pro-EU areas in Greater Manchester.
Meanwhile outlying areas such as Rochdale and Oldham appear to be quite heavily Eurosceptic.
Political academic Chris Hanretty, of the University of East Anglia, has compiled this breakdown of how local areas are most likely to vote:
How Greater Manchester areas could vote:
He stresses that for each figure there is roughly a five percent margin of error either way.
In other words, as he says: “Don’t fall off your chair on Thursday night if the results don’t match up with this.”
But it does give an indication of how divided the region actually is.
His analysis suggests seven out of ten boroughs are leaning towards Brexit, with Rochdale, Oldham, Bolton, Wigan and Tameside all appearing fairly strongly Eurosceptic.
The strongest leaning one way or the other appears to be in Manchester, with a firm bias towards Remain.
That is unsurprising given that cities, including London, are generally expected to be pro-EU.
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Salford – in common with other research – appears to be split down the middle, with Leave and Remain virtually neck and neck.
The figures have been compiled using research done by the British Election Study at Manchester University in May last year. They have been updated and weighted according to the latest opinion polls, which are a lot more pro-Brexit than they were a year ago.
His is not the only bit of research to have been carried out into voting intentions.
In February YouGov carried out their own polling, which shows a similar trend but not as pronounced.
YouGov polling:
Again it suggests that Manchester, Stockport and Trafford all leaning towards Remain.
But at that point, Oldham, Rochdale and Bolton were all looking to be more or less half-and-half, suggesting the last few months of campaigning may have hardened them towards Brexit.
That most of the region appears to be leaning towards Out should obviously be alarming for the Remain camp – but it should be extra alarming for Labour.
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All seven of the apparently Brexit-leaning boroughs are Labour areas. And Labour are campaigning for Remain. It suggests the party could have a mountain to climb in the next three days if it is going to take its core voters with it.
And what of Google searches?
Not the most scientific of evidence, but worth a look.
Google searches on EU referendum:
In fact, it shows a very different trend to the academic research, which suggests it may not be too much of an indicator regarding voting intentions, but is still interesting.
Everywhere in Greater Manchester – including those places such as Manchester, which appears to be strongly pro-EU – have very high levels of Google searching for ‘leave’, apart from Tameside and Oldham.
