# What They Don't Want: An Analysis of Brexit's First Round of Indicative Votes

## TL;DR

This paper analyzes the first round of indicative votes on Brexit in UK Parliament, using statistical methods to interpret the results and explore the implications for potential Brexit outcomes and voting behaviors.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of Brexit indicative votes, employing Monte Carlo simulations and hypothetical ordinal ballots to understand voting preferences and strategic implications.

## Key findings

- Softer Brexit positions are more likely to succeed.
- Monte Carlo methods effectively interpret complex voting data.
- Tactical voting could influence Brexit outcome predictions.

## Abstract

Since the result of the 2016 referendum, Brexit has been an unpredictable democratic adventure, the finale of which remains unclear. This year, in the final days of March, parliamentarians seized control of the order paper from the Government and held their own indicative votes in an attempt to break the deadlock. In this paper we analyse the results of this unusual cardinal ballot. We express the various motions in terms of `how much Brexit' they deliver, and employ Monte Carlo in an attempt to determine this from the data. We find solutions which reproduce our intuitive understanding of the debate. Finally, we construct hypothetical ordinal ballots for the various Brexit scenarios, using three different processes. The results suggest that the Government would be more successful taking a softer position, and we quantify this. Additionally, there is some discussion of how tactical voting might manifest itself in the event of such an exercise.