Wednesday 27 April 2016 2:36 pm

EU referendum: Leave makes gains but Remain still leads while undecideds could swing it

With under two months until the UK votes on its membership of the EU, support for Leave has risen marginally, but Remain still comfortably leads.

A recent poll by Survation on behalf of IG Group puts backing for Leave on 38 per cent, a rise of two per cent since the last poll for IG on 24 March and four points since Survation's initial poll on 20 February.

Meanwhile, the poll of 1,003 adults across the EU found that Remain had 45 per cent of support, and 17 per cent of those polled are undecided.

Technically, then, the undecideds could yet swing it for the Leave campaign.

But in reality, when the undecided voters were "squeezed", and told they had to choose, remain came out with 56 per cent and leave with 44 per cent.

As Survation said: "Adding back these respondents to the initial voting intention has the effect of a slight (one per cent) boost to Remain."

And, "as we saw in both the 2011 Alternative Vote and 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, public opinion in such referendums has been subject to change from the effect of rival campaign activity, televised debates and other events that can swing public opinion," said Damian Lyons Lowe, chief executive of Survation.

Meanwhile, IG's EU referendum barometer still predicts a 73 per cent chance that the UK remains in the EU.

The Barometer is an indicator of what those traders are predicting will happen in the 2016 UK referendum on membership of the EU. The data is based on the political binary market IG has created for clients to trade on.