Thus pleads the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad with a front-page headline “Don’t leave me this way” over a full-page Union Jack. The Netherlands currently chairs the European Union, and it is thought that if Britain leaves on its watch, this will damage the country’s reputation. The headline is also seen by many as a response to British tabloid The Sun, which told its readers on Tuesday to vote “Leave” when they make the “biggest political decision of our lives” on 23 June so that Britain may be “set free from dictatorial Brussels.” The political rhetoric surrounding the “Leave” campaign has unfortunately descended into xenophobia and racism, with so-called immigration problems being the main target of speeches and cartoons. In a lighter moment, the Guardian advises its readers to freeze your cheese and holiday in Albania.
The debate of Britain leaving the European Union is gathering impetus ahead of next week’s referendum, with many polls indicating that the “Leave” campaign is winning out over the “Remain.” On the other hand, First Franklin Chief Market Strategist Brett Ewing has a different interpretation of the polls. In a close examination of the latest set of results, Ewing said in commentary this morning: “In the polling for Brexit, ‘undecideds’ consistently make up somewhere around 10 percent of responders. Most people who are calling for the Brexit to happen are citing the tendency of undecideds to break towards the challenging side—this phenomenon does exist when voting for people, but not for issues. When facing an issue that directly effects the person voting,” contends Ewing, “it is much harder to pull the trigger for change than it is to simply vote for a person with whom they identify. The other key differences in the polling come from the discrepancy in online versus telephone polling. ‘Remain’ has consistently been ahead in telephone polling … identifiable telephonic polling is much less susceptible to errors in sample size and veracity of belief than the online polling.” The Economist has a Brexit poll tracker on its site, though this amalgamates statistics from both online and telephone polling.
