Following our Brexit straw poll at our BE Premier Leaders Club (poll results here) in May 2019, Built Environment Networking decided to consult our 300 strong audience at the Midlands Development Conference to gauge their opinion on current political developments. The poll took place before Prime Minister Theresa May’s resignation but nevertheless the same question was posed:

 

Question one was: given what we now know, would you vote to leave the European Union or Remain? [emaillocker id=”71749″] 

A secondary question was then asked: if we leave would you accept Theresa May’s deal or would you prefer a hard Brexit?

 

Delegates were invited to vote privately during the lunchtime interval and following a 57% turnout 72% voted to remain in the EU and 28% said we should leave. In response to the secondary question was 67% of respondents would take May’s deal whereas 34% would prefer a hard Brexit.

Looking back to 2016, the whole of Midlands (although not a unitary authority within itself) voted 59.26% to leave in the West and 58.82% to leave in the East on a turn out of 72% in the west and 74.2% in the East. Our poll suggests on a similar sample size that there has been a swing towards remaining in the EU and in particular that over two third of the property and construction sector in the region wish to maintain the status quo.

Our audience were unaware that events would unfold over the following 24 hours leading which will ultimately lead to the appointment of the UK’s third Prime Minister in four years, or indeed Sunday evening’s European parliament election results and how they may affect the Brexit negotiations, nevertheless we will be posing the same question at the forthcoming West Yorkshire Development Conference in Leeds on 5th June. [/emaillocker]