SMEs Support Britain IN

Analysis of business sentiment has shown that – contrary to the frequent claims of the Leave campaigns – small businesses overwhelmingly back Britain remaining in the EU. Analysis of polls conducted over the past six months has found that 81% of small businesses want Britain to remain in the EU. That compares with 82% of businesses of all sizes, including larger businesses.

It is therefore clear that there is no significant difference in sentiment towards the UK’s EU membership between large and small businesses; and that businesses of all sizes, including SMEs, overwhelmingly back Britain remaining in.

The Leave campaigns have frequently claimed that small businesses in the UK favour Britain leaving Europe. That claim is without any credible evidence and is shown to be false by the only recent meta-analysis of UK businesses’ support for Britain’s EU membership.

Britain Stronger In Europe analysed surveys from the last six months asking businesses whether they favoured remaining in the EU or leaving it. Surveys which did not ask questions close enough to be considered a voting intention question (Remain or Leave) were excluded. 18 business surveys were included. The average results in these surveys were 82% in favour of remaining and 18% wanting to leave.

7 of the surveys were restricted to just being conducted amongst SMEs and the results were very similar: 81% in favour of remaining and 19% wanting to leave. All the statistics above exclude undecideds. If those are included, an average of 66% of those surveyed were in favour of remaining, only 14% wanted to leave, and 20% did not commit to either.

The only evidence the Leave campaigns point to is a single poll from last September, which they undertook themselves and didn’t even ask the voting intention question.