Not really that overwhelming in the context of the entire population. Remember it was a binary decision so a vote lost for one side is a vote gained for the other so you only need around 600,000 to change the overall vote - more the population of Sheffield than the population of Birmingham.Also bear in mind that over 500,000 people a year die in the UK. Given that over 60% of the over 65s voted for Brexit the notional majority is almost definitely getting smaller every day. Given the demographic pattern of the voting there are probably going to be net 100,000 fewer Brexit voters every year due to the deaths.This will work in the opposite way as well. There are between 700 and 800,000 people reaching voting age each year over the next few years. As 70% of 18-24 year olds voted Remain this probably means that there is a net gain each year of about 300,000.Net migration to the UK has recently been over 300,000. We have no data on how these people might vote but it is not a big leap to assume that they would be overwhelmingly in favour of remaining. If you assume a reduction in immigration due to the weak currency let's say there is a net increase in the remain vote each year due to immigration of 150,000.Combining these all you get a net annual reduction in the Leave majority of around 550,000. So within three years there could be a majority for Remain.This of course makes some assumptions most particularly nobody changes their mind. However after two years there are likely to be over a million fewer votes on the Leave side. This would mean at that point the number of people who would need to change their mind to end the majority for Brexit would not be the population of Birmingham or even Sheffield but more like the population of Yeovil. The problem is that people are taking comfort in absolute numbers to convince themselves that the vote is decisive whereas the percentages are actually very tight.
Andy Jones ● 3095d