Brexit now backed by 23% of Remain voters who say UK has duty to leave EU

Theresa May's "Brexit means Brexit" agenda has been given a boost as 23% of Remain voters now back the UK splitting from the bloc, according to new analysis from YouGov.

The pollster found that the British electorate could be split into three groups: "Hard Leavers" who want out of the EU (45%); "Hard Remainers" who still want to try to stop Brexit (22%); and the "Re-Leavers" (23%). The other 9% of voters did not know.

"This group means that when discussing Brexit and its implications in the campaign the electorate is not two pools of voters split almost down the middle 52/48," said Marcus Roberts, YouGov's director of international projects.

"Instead, it is instead one massive lake made up of Leave and Re-Leave voters and one much smaller Remain pond.

This means that the Conservatives and Ukip are fishing among 68% of voters with Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and nationalists scrapping for just 22% of voters."

The research could explain why the Liberal Democrats are not doing as well as they hoped in the opinion polls.

The party has campaigned on a pro-EU ticket, which may have helped the Liberal Democrats win the Richmond Park by-election in December, but they are scoring as low as 7% in recent polls, below the 7.9% of the vote the party won at the 2015 general election.

Labour are backing a Brexit, but YouGov said voters see Jeremy Corbyn's party as having a "somewhat opaque stance" on the issue.

Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer has said that Labour wants tariff-free access to the EU's single-market, but admitted free movement of EU nationals would have to be scrapped.

EU Council chief Donald Tusk has ruled out such a deal, dismissing it as Brexit "a la carte". With just over three weeks to go before the general election on 8 June, Labour are 18 points behind the Conservatives, according to the most recent polls from Survation, YouGov and ComRes.