An analysis of Google Trends: Did the British public know what they were voting for?

The EU Split
At 22:00 BST on the 23rd June 2016 the doors closed at polling stations across the UK and the fate of the country was sealed. The British public had voted to leave the European Union by a margin of 3.8 percent. One element of this referendum that the popular press had picked up on, was a spike in Google Trends which identified that the British public had begun searching for the term, “What is the EU?” hours after the results were announced. Many of the commentators had inferred that there was a lack of awareness amongst Britons and that they were unsure why they had voted to leave.

On reviewing the media, we can clearly see polarised views on the referendum and although I am personally disappointed in the final result I do take exception with the analysis of the said trend thus far. I would now like to demonstrate why this particular trend should be considered insignificant. The graph below (see figure 1) is an image from the Google Trends site, it illustrates a 97 percent rise in the search terms “what is the EU?” and “what is Brexit?” made by the British public over a 7-day period from the 21st June 2016.

Google Trends

Figure 1: An analysis of the search terms “what is the EU?” and “what is Brexit?” between 21st and 27th June 2016 (Source: Google Trends).

Using Google’s Keyword Planner, we can establish that the average daily searches during the month of May for “what is the EU?” and “what is Brexit?” were 281 and 874 respectively or 48 as a total per hour (note, the values for June are not available yet). The graph in figure 1 represents a rolling view over time, in this case 7 days. The spike occurred at 07:30 BST and is approximately 97 percent higher than the average over the last three months (not illustrated in the graph). It then drops to approximately 30 percent by the end of 24th June, giving us an average of 63.5 percent over that period of time. This means that the total number of searches for “what is the EU?” and “what is Brexit?” that took place on the 24th June was approximately 51,000 or 0.15% of the population that took part in the referendum: this, statistically speaking is not significant. It means that much of the rhetoric made by the media about the British public being unsure why they had voted to leave is simply not true.

The people have voted and democracy dictates that we have to accept it. Each of the voters will have had a clear vision on why they voted the way they did, but let’s not forget, the question was simple, stay in the EU or leave and the mandate was to leave. But what does leaving really mean? Can we (or should we):

  • Stay in the Single European Market?
  • Allow free movement?
  • Divert the weekly £350m we currently pay into the EU to the NHS?

These are just three dilemmas the nation now faces, and although they were arguably implied in some of the campaigning they were never explicit in the referendum question. This means that the split in the nation will continue, so our leaders, who are sadly all in disarray (with the exception of the SNP), must come together quickly and work to unite the country. The focus must be on providing prosperity and growth for all.

Epilogue

In my opinion the best way to achieve this is to call a general election so that the framework of the new plan can be put to the people.

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Dr Alan Shaw is a Senior Lecturer and Marketing consultant focusing on a range of sectors. His main interests are in strategy development, social marketing, digital marketing, advertising, consumer behaviour and marketing application.
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