Britain could be on the brink of leaving the EU, as ICM online AND phone polls give Leave a decent lead

Until now, it's been possible to believe that the apparent spectacle of phone polls moving sharply in favour of Leave was illusory.  There had only been a handful of phone polls over the last two-and-a-bit weeks - an ICM poll which put Leave in the lead, and which many people thought might be a rogue because it was conducted over a Bank Holiday, and two ORB polls which showed a narrow Remain lead on the headline numbers, but which still had very substantial 'underlying' Remain leads among the whole sample.  But most of the reassurance for Remain has just been dramatically stripped away with the publication of a new ICM phone poll that shows the Leave lead growing still further.  There's no Bank Holiday get-out clause this time, so the new poll essentially corroborates the previous one from the same firm.  Even taking into account the margin of error, two consecutive polls showing a small Leave lead make it very unlikely that Remain are currently ahead (if ICM's phone methodology is basically sound, that is).

As was the case two weeks ago, ICM conducted a simultaneous online poll, and found that the previous huge divergence between online and phone polling has vanished into thin air.

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

Telephone poll :

Remain 45% (+3)

Leave 50% (+5)

Online poll :

Remain 44% (n/c)

Leave 49% (+2)

As always in Britain-wide polls, the Scottish subsamples are tiny and unreliable.  But for what it's worth, the phone subsample puts Remain ahead by 54% to 44%, and the online subsample puts Remain ahead by 54% to 39%.  So as of this moment, we appear to be on course for the UK Leave / Scottish Remain 'doomsday scenario' that is thought could trigger an early second independence referendum.

When we see polls like these, it's worth taking a step back and recalling that the referendum is already well underway - a substantial minority of people have already voted by post, and in some cases they did so quite some time ago.  So if ICM are right, Remain are in a bit of a pickle here, because some of the result is already set in stone.  Pro-Europeans will be banking on a late swing back towards the status quo, which does often happen in referendums (although if it does occur, there's no guarantee it'll be on any great scale), and possibly on ICM proving to be less accurate than other firms.  It's perfectly possible, for example, that the next Ipsos-Mori phone poll will still show some kind of Remain lead, because so far Ipsos-Mori have tended to be more Remain-friendly than other phone firms.  But there again, Ipsos-Mori reported an enormous swing towards Yes as they converged with other firms at the end of the indyref campaign, so absolutely nothing can be taken for granted at this stage.

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SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

Today's new update of the Poll of Polls marks the first time Leave have been ahead on all three averages.  However, the telephone average is based on just two polls, so should be treated with a bit of caution.

50/50 ONLINE/TELEPHONE AVERAGE :

Remain 44.8% (-0.2)
Leave 46.9% (+1.4)

ONLINE AVERAGE :

Remain 43.0% (+0.1)
Leave 45.3% (+0.4)

TELEPHONE AVERAGE :

Remain 46.5% (-0.5)
Leave 48.5% (+2.5)

(The Poll of Polls takes account of all polls that were conducted at least partly within the last two weeks. The online average is based on ten polls - four from YouGov, three from ICM, two from Opinium and one from ORB. The telephone average is based on two polls - one from ORB and one from ICM.)