Fixed, Crystallising or Diverging: Attitude formation and change in the run-up to Brexit
Principal Investigators: Professor Anthony Heath and Dr Lindsay Richards
This project aims to monitor public attitudes towards key aspects of the Brexit negotiations as they evolve over the course of negotiations between the UK and the EU. The study covers attitudes and expectations about the control of immigration, trade, borders, and sovereignty (‘taking back control’), among other topics.
We investigate whether the public is willing to accept tradeoffs between different elements of the negotiations, to what extent they feel that policy areas should be decided at national, supra-national or sub-national levels, and how public opinion differs across the UK and across different sections of the population. The drivers of opinion and opinion change, such as social identities (e.g. Brexiteer), and macro-economic developments (e.g. unemployment), are also explored in the 18-month study.