The Politics of Polling (Political Polling and Digital Media Committee Report)

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not a member of the Select Committee. It is a very interesting report and I am glad that I have been able to listen to the speeches today. I have decided to follow up my Oral Question last Thursday for the very reason given by my noble friend Lord Foulkes—that the mainstream press has basically tried to ignore the issue that has been raised.

It is 9.40 pm on Thursday 23 June. Polls on the EU referendum close at 10 pm. The law means no exit poll information until the close of poll—or, more correctly, no exit poll information to any section of the public before close of poll. Does it matter? Is anyone interested? Well, thanks to the Bloomberg report entitled The Brexit Short: How Hedge Funds Used Private Polls to Make Millions”, which was published only on Monday last week, we know a lot more than we did.

I have no problem with people buying polling information, and as a non-lawyer I cannot see a law broken—although it appears that the issue of exit poll information getting to people before close of poll has not been tested in the courts. Information is gold and can be used for betting on horses as well as financial markets. Information about the market can also be used to change the market—and done in secret it poses questions. It is not insider trading but it can look like market manipulation.

Here we have a unique situation: a national referendum on the UK’s 44-year membership of the European Union with which our economy and social fabric are intertwined. The votes are taking place on 23 June and the counting starts to flow only in the early hours of 24 June. The world’s financial markets are open 24/7 wherever you are, so knowing what might have happened as people actually voted could be useful information for placing financial bets. It turns out that half a dozen pollsters, listed by my noble friend, were simultaneously working for hedge funds and, after 10 pm, sharing information with the media. None of this was disclosed by the pollsters, and, so far as I can see, none told the committee, either. It is not illegal— indeed, it is all legal and secret. So before 10 pm some pollsters had exit information which, given the fees they were charging, could be expected to be of high quality. According to Bloomberg, the fees were astronomical. We are talking about a £1 million fee to the pollsters.

I have never met Mr Farage, who is a person of importance in public life in the UK. He is clearly very brave. I remember the 2010 election when he had an aircraft accident and was incredibly lucky to get away with his life. He moves in circles above my pay grade and calculates his every move himself—or it is done for him. He is careful as a political leader with public statements, and, given that it was the 4 million UKIP votes in 2010 that terrified our former Prime Minister into agreeing an in/out referendum, he carries substantial influence in the UK and beyond our borders. He is both a City expert and an MEP. In other words, he is an opinion former of considerable substance to people in the UK and outside.

So I go back. It is 9.40 pm on 23 June, and there are 20 minutes to the close of the poll. Mr Farage is in the Sky studio recording his post-10 pm statement. It was a concession: “Remain will edge it” and “UKIP and I are going nowhere”. When he recorded this, Bloomberg claims he had information from Survation that leave, not remain, had won.

“In an interview with Bloomberg, Farage said he had learned of Survation’s results before making at least one of two public concessions that night, meaning there was a good chance he was feeding specious sentiment into markets”.


Indeed, behind the scenes pollsters were selling information to hedge funds that leave had won. This information could not by law be given to the public before 10 pm. Bloomberg research tells us that Mr Farage twice told the world that leave had likely lost, when he had information that leave had won.

As the polls closed, YouGov predicted that remain had won 52-48, and, according to page 4 of the Guardian on 25 June 2016—I have gone through my cuttings again—Mr Farage said remain had edged it because his,

“friends in the City”,

were betting on the UK staying in. The Guardian also reported on that day, two days after the close of the poll, on the same page:

“Little attention was paid to a bigger poll of 10,000 people commissioned by Leave.EU founder and Ukip donor Arron Banks which turned to be on the money at 52-48 for leave”.


Bloomberg research tells us that hedge funds wanted data streamed throughout the day on 23 June, polling day. This could not by law be published. Many academics worked on these polls for the hedge funds, but declined to comment, citing non-disclosure agreements. Two books published since claim that Mr Farage learned about the unidentified financial services exit polls well before the close of the poll. They also say that Mr Farage learned of the result before recording his concession to Sky at 9.40 pm, which was used at 10 pm.

Mr Farage, Bloomberg claims, has changed his story—I have seen this on social media—at least twice about who he spoke to. He has claimed that his Sky concession was not a “true concession”, but he cannot explain why, 70 minutes after the Sky broadcast, he gave a further concession after 11 pm. Why would a man of his political substance on this crucial evening claim a remain win when he had information that leave had won? His words moved markets, and as the sub-heading of the Bloomberg report states:

“Private polls—and a timely ‘concession’ from the face of Leave—allowed the funds to make millions off the pound’s collapse”.


So the issue is not one of Mr Farage being misleading. He can as an elected MEP do that any time. He should not be the target—although I did go to Thanet in 2015 to stop him getting into the Commons, and was quite successful. No, the issue is that, as Bloomberg puts it:

“With one hand, the pollsters fed the public information that affected the outcome and moved the markets. With the other, they sold data privately to clients betting on market moves created by their public-facing polls”.


That is what should be investigated and regulated, because that is where the real rip-off comes about. It is not about individuals; it is about the open manipulation of the market by giving false information.

I do not think this could happen in a general election. It probably would not be the same, but the referendum was unique because there was not proper, effective exit poll. For reasons that have been explained by the pollsters, it is no possible to replicate the success of exit polls in a general election. This quite clear misuse of information by the pollsters to mislead the public and feed the markets, created by their own false moves, ought to be investigated.