February 22, 2018

Poll finds almost half of Leave voters think the BBC has an ‘anti-Brexit’ bias

New figures have revealed that 45 per cent of Leave voters believe the BBC News has an anti-Brexit bias, compared to 14 per cent of Remain voters.

The Yougov poll of 1,676 UK adults found that 5 per cent of Leave voters considered BBC News to be pro-Brexit, while 13 per cent of Remain voters thought the same.

Asked to say whether they think BBC News is pro-Brexit, anti-Brexit, neither or don’t know, the majority of Remain voters polled said “neither” or “don’t know”.

The new figures come after Lord Adonis, a prominent Brexit critic, said on Twitter that the anti-Brexit stance of the corporation was “so deep the BBC doesn’t even realise it”.

Yougov also asked respondents what they thought the Brexit stances were of the major national broadcasters and newspapers.

The biggest response came from the 40 per cent that thought the Mail was pro-Brexit, with 37 per cent saying the same for The Sun and 31 per cent for the Express – all three papers campaigned for Britain to exit the EU.

The i paper was found to be have the highest neutral score among the titles, with 73 per cent of respondents choosing “neither”, but 15 per cent considered it “anti-Brexit”.

Sky News was viewed as the most pro-Brexit broadcaster, with 12 per cent of the those polled saying it was in favour of leaving the EU.