As you’re probably aware, there has been a poll running on this website over the past few days to gauge how the UK window and door industry would vote in the upcoming EU referendum. Crucially, this poll is taking place after the latest rounds of negotiations from David Cameron with the rest of the EU. His “deal” was largely slammed by most, with many coming to the conclusion that this new relationship really wasn’t much different from the current one.
So, in an attempt to gauge reactions and new opinions, I opened up a poll asking industry readers, based on this new deal and relationship, how they were likely to vote. The results were emphatic:
Now I know some of you find these regular polls on DGB a bit annoying when they pop up on your screen automatically, but they get results. Votes were trickling in when I left the poll attached to the post it was published on. But once I set it to appear on your screen automatically, then disappear once you voted, things really got going.
In total 419 votes were cast in just a couple of days, and it’s clear which camp most of those voters were in. I did expect the “leave” to be ahead, given that a number of national polls recently gave the “out” campaign a 9% lead. But I didn’t expect the lead to be so large.
Analysis
For the importance of fairness, I restricted each person to one vote each by way of cookie. I’ve taken a look at the analytics and web traffic around the post and poll and I’m confident that the majority of votes were cast by industry members.
Personally, I think if I held this poll a week before the date of the actual referendum these votes would be different. I think there are some who perhaps have been swayed by the media hype in recent weeks, especially given recent speeches made by the PM and other Government ministers and the following analysis of those speeches. I suspect that as the campaigns ramp up and the arguments for and against are made, some of these votes will change. It almost certainly won’t be 86% voting out by the time of the referendum.
There are many issues involved within the whole EU debate, yet it’s only one or two issues that seems to be driving the debate. I think it is important for everyone who intends to vote to find out as much information as possible about all possible issues raised by Brexit before deciding one way or another. There’s no going back if we vote to leave, so at least be very sure of your decision when you put the x on the ballot paper.
I’ll be honest I’m not the worlds expert on the EU and for sure will be looking at both sides of the debate before making a decision. What I do believe though is the media is firmly established to ‘cement’ our views one way or the other. Positive benefits don’t make for news stories, but Human Rights, Immigration, bent bananas and other credible/false news stories about the EU far dominate the positives. What has been great about the EU is freedom of travel, freedom to reside anywhere and lets not forget the hundreds of thousands of Brits that choose to… Read more »
If this is mainly industry people who have voted, it would be good to further ask if this is the view of you as an individual or are you speaking on behalf of your business? Most business organisations like CBI etc seem to be in favour of staying in, so this is quite a surprising result – maybe it reflects the fact that most fabbers and retailers are selling only inside the UK so have less of a focus on Europe ( compared to the wider manufacturing sector). I think for most regular people, the issue will hinge around control… Read more »
I am outside person. I am Bulgarian, but follow DGB every day. My business is glass processing and distribution of glass processing machines and consumables. I am not young and Bulgaria is not an EU member since long time. So I could clearly estimate what was before. If UK goes out of EU, that means that my company would stop buying special kind of glass, machines and consumables from there. We will stop buying special products as fire resistant and smart glass from UK producers. If there are customs duties and customs clearance, we would avoid trading with UK. It… Read more »