Joe Twyman speaking to ELL. Pic: Cheolan Jeong.

Any movement in favour of staying in the EU over the past year has been very small, according to leading political pollster Joe Twyman.

The director and co-founder of Deltapoll was speaking to ELL after the government’s defeat on its Brexit plan last week. A growing number of MPs are thought to be in favour of a second referendum to break the deadlock.

Mr Twyman says: “We’ve seen a switch in the positions, but it’s very small and it’s certainly nothing like the wave of support that some Remain groups claim. Particularly, if you were looking for a second referendum, you would want to be far and away more in the lead coming up to a referendum, than the polls suggest at the moment.”

The pollster also says that a lot of the movement could be attributed to a demographic change since the 2016 referendum.

“Those older people within the electorate, who overwhelmingly voted to leave, have died, and have been replaced in the electorate by younger voters who in the main support Remain,” he says.

But, he added, what they haven’t seen is a large number of people actually switching their views, and certainly there hasn’t been much evidence of regret from Leave voters.

Watch the ELL+ exclusive here: http://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2019/01/ell-news-day-january-17-2019/