A new poll has found a noticeable difference between Leave and Remain voters on whether or not to believe Prince Andrew’s explanation around his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The Duke of York was grilled in a now infamous Newsnight interview in which he addressed claims that he slept with a 17-year-old girl at the convicted sex offender’s home in 2001.
Prince Andrew, who said he knew nothing of Epstein’s crimes, claims he was at a Pizza Express in Woking on the night of the alleged incident.
Despite this, a YouGov poll has found that just 6% of people believe this explanation, with half the country disbelieving him outright.
But among Leave voters there is a little more generosity towards the duke, and 9% of them believe him.
This is three times as many as the 3% of Remainers who do.
The numbers, while relatively small, reveal a larger difference in attitude than between men (7%) and women (3%) who believe him.
Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison this year, was also jailed in 1999 for procuring underage girls and has been accused of widespread sexual exploitation.
Prince Andrew told Newsnight that maintaining a friendship with the disgraced financier after his conviction was “definitely the wrong thing to do, but at the time I felt it was the honourable and right thing to do”.
The Leave and Remain camps can agree on one thing: 51% of respondents across the board believe the interview has damaged the monarchy’s standing.
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