EU Referendum
Local sentiment
The first fifty Bay Life readers have now indicated the likelihood of the way that they will vote in the EU Referendum.
There is a now clear gap between those people that want to stay in the European Union and those that want us to come out of the European Union.
A total of 48% of people say that we should stay in the European Union and 52% say that we should leave the European Union.
After the first three weeks of the straw poll, the voting intentions were split roughly 50/50 between those people saying that they wanted us to come out of the Union and those that wanted us to stay in.
Over the course of the last week, the clear gap that has emerged, appears somewhat to be influenced by what is happening on the national stage with attention given to people like Boris Johnson. He has twice appear in major programmes, on the last occasion on The Andrew Marr show last Sunday, when he emphasised the importance of the sovereignty issue.
The day of the historic vote about the future of the country in the European Union is June 23. The Bay Life straw poll will stay on our homepage until the day before the date of the Referendum to enable the community to see patterns that emerge with a small sampling of local voting intentions.
Interestingly, our local MP, Huw Merriman, has decided to undertake ‘chairmanship’ of a series of public hustings meetings in the locality, one of which is to take place at the Priory Court Hotel in Pevensey on 16 June.
He has not declared his intentions in relation to which way he will vote arguing that he has decided to ‘invite debate”.
On 22 February, following the announcement of the date for the EU Referendum, he said “following the announcement from the Prime Minister that the EU referendum will be held on 23 June, I have been contacted by a number of constituents, and media organisations, who are keen to know my voting intentions in the EU Referendum. I have also been asked if I will be actively campaigning for one side or the other.
“Over the past few months, it has been clear to me that many of my constituents are keen to better understand, and hear, each side of the argument before making a decision. In order to help constituents, I have organised, and will be chairing, seven public debates which will be held across the constituency during June. I believe that an MP should, in a referendum of this magnitude, be available to guide and inform”.
