Leave voters significantly less likely than Remainers to strongly support gay rights

closeup of two caucasian men holding hands with a rainbow-patterned wristban on their wrists
Remain supporters are more likely to support gay rights than Leavers (Getty)

A new poll has found that Remainers are overwhelmingly more likely to be in favour of gay rights than Leave voters.

According to market researchers Ipsos MORI, 78% of Remainers believe gay people should be treated exactly the same way as everyone else - compared to 51% of Leavers.

Supporters of Remain-leaning parties are also more likely to be more supportive of gay rights, with 75% of Lib Dems and 69% of Labour voters strongly agreeing with the principle, compared to 46% in the Brexit Party and 51% in the Tories.

The figures were released as part of a wide-ranging survey that shows how there has been an increase in liberal attitudes in Britain over the past 30 years.

The results, based on two surveys of over 1,000 adults aged 16-75 in the UK, shows that just 13% of people believe homosexual relationships were morally wrong - a huge drop from the 40% who believed it in 1989.

Just over half (52%) of Brits in 1989 agreed that “homosexuals should be treated just like other people” - but that figure has now leapt to 82%.

Nearly a quarter of people strongly agreed with that sentiment in 1989, compared to 64% in 2019.

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Attitudes to nudity have also softened over the years, with a drop from 39% to 23% of people believing full frontal male nudity on television was morally wrong.

Moral disapproval of strip shows has fallen from 25% in 1989 to 20% in 2019, while 21% disapproved of page 3 girls - unchanged from 30 years ago.

Another virtually unchanged area is infidelity, with 52% regarding sexual relationships with someone who is married to someone else as immoral in 1989, compared to 55% today.

Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl
Attitudes to infidelity are virtually unchanged from 30 years ago (Getty/posed by models)

The figures show that men have become slightly less accepting of cheating, with 55% saying it is morally wrong, up from 49%.

Commenting on the results, professor Bobby Duffy, Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said: “These findings show Britain has become decisively more liberal on a range of moral issues in the last 30 years.

“That we’ve gone from being a country in which four in ten thought gay relationships were not just wrong but immoral, and in which only half thought gay people should be treated just like anyone else, to the society we see today, all in the space of a few decades, shows just how much attitudes can change.”

He added: “One of the causes of this shift is that Baby Boomers – who grew up in more permissive times – have moved into older age, replacing a generation born before World War II, who had more conservative views.”

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