bias in the referendum question
in a story from EUobserver.com it appears that when asked the referendum question "should the UK approve the treaty establishing a Constitution for the European Union" 36% said yes and 29% said no. However the polls have been solidly sceptic for year so why the sudden turn around. The answer, there was no turn around as in a seperate poll asking "If there were a referendum tomorrow, would you vote for Britain to sign up to the European constitution or not?" 54% of people said no and only 26% said yes, which is around the rate that has been said for years.
So is there bias in the question? Overty no, but look at again closer, "should the UK approve the treaty establishing a Constitution for the European Union", given the fact that most people do not identify themselves as European it could be interpreted as asking "should [us in] the UK approve the treaty establishing a Constitution for [them in] the European Union". Nowhere does it say that we have to sign up to the consititution, it just asks should it be established. That should it be established we would have to sign up is not even infered anywhere unless you have lots of background knowledge. So the interpretation could then be "should [us in] the UK approve[, but not automatically sign up to,] the treaty establishing a Constitution for [them in] the European Union"
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