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Image: Sky Data asks the public for its views on key issues

Here, Sky Data explains how it carries out its work, whose opinions it seeks and how its polls are used.

Tables for all Sky Data's previous polls for Sky News can be found at the bottom of the page.

What is Sky Data?

Sky Data conducts nationally representative polls. We work primarily for Sky News, though other clients include the University of Oxford, London School of Economics and the Economic and Social Research Council. Sky Data is a member of the British Polling Council and abide by its rules.

Who are we polling?

We use the millions of Sky customers who have provided consent for us to contact them with regard to research as a form of research panel. We contact our respondents by email or SMS.

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How do we make it nationally representative?

As with all pollsters, we select the sample and weight the data to be in line with the demographic profile of the UK - so that we have the right proportion of people of different genders, age groups, regions, social grades, etc.

Do Sky customers have different political attitudes to non-Sky customers?

No - when we control for demographics as above, Sky customers are no different to other members of the public.

We have conducted extensive testing of our results comparing with "gold standard" academic polls - the British Social Attitudes survey and the British Election Study - and our results compare favourably with other mainstream pollsters.

How can a sample of only a thousand people reflect the opinion of millions of Britons?

George Gallup - the man who pioneered modern opinion polling in the USA in the 1930s - used the analogy of tasting if a bowl of soup has enough salt.

If you have mixed it well, you can tell with one spoon - you don't need to eat the whole bowl.

In this analogy, the "mixing" is the sampling and weighting mentioned above - so long as the sample is representative of the overall population, statistical theory dictates that a poll of 1,000 people will be within 3% of the true result if you asked every single Briton 95% of the time.

What about those votes in news articles or on social media that allow anyone to click on them?

Those sort of polls boost engagement with stories and are fun to take part in - Sky News publishes them - but they do not reflect public opinion.

Not even if loads of people have taken part?

No. An example of this is the creation story of opinion polling - George Gallup taking on the then-influential magazine, the Literary Digest.

The Literary Digest polled a huge but unrepresentative sample of 2.4 million people ahead of the 1936 US Presidential election, taking every respondent they could get their hands on, and predicted a big win for Alf Landon.

Gallup polled a far smaller but representative sample, with quotas for the likes of gender, age and social grade, predicting a big win for Franklin D Roosevelt.

As you'll have guessed, Gallup was right - and the Literary Digest was extremely wrong.

Even a survey of millions will be way off if it has proportionally too many of some types of people and too few of others - and much smaller samples that do take that into account can be very accurate.

Why do some of your results not add up to 100%?

Often results will add up to 99% or 101%. This is due to rounding, for example if 49.5% said "yes" and 50.5% said "no", it would round to 50% and 51%.

Sometimes we will also show results excluding people who select options such as "don't know" or "prefer not to say" - we always publish a full breakdown of results online on the Sky News website and tweet them out from @SkyData.

Below you can find the tables for all Sky Data's past polling for Sky News.

Online polls

January 2020 - Boris Johnson's performance

October 2019 - Party leader satisfaction

03/04/19 - Other Brexit questions

03/04/19 - Brexit compromise

27/03/19 - Other Brexit questions

27/03/19 - Indicative votes

February 2019 - ROI Brexit

22/01/19 - Brexit compromise

19/02/19 - Independent Group

18/01/19 - Brexit crisis

17/01/19 - Corbyn Brexit

January 2019 - State of the nation

January 2019 - Racism in football

December 2018 - Wales

November 2018 - Housing for IPPR

November 2018 - LGBT

November 2018 - Brexit

October 2018 - British views on Northern Ireland and Brexit

September 2018 - Conference season

August 2018 - Brexit

June 2018 - Crime and police funding

July 2018 - Brexit, Corbyn anti-Semitism

May 2018 - Republic of Ireland

May 2018 - Nostalgia with Demos

March 2018 - Northern Ireland

March 2018 - Preferred leader and party on key issues, Russia

February 2018 - Feminism, AI

January 2018 - Trump, NHS & social care, plastics

December 2017 - Markle, Christmas

November 2017 - Universal Credit, plastics, intergenerational justice, sexual harassment

August 2017 - Brexit, racism, university

July 2017 - leaders and policies

March 2017 - Brexit, unions

February 2017 - Brexit, NHS & social care

Late November 2016 - plastics, communities, Brexit

Early November 2016 - Clinton & Trump, Budget

September 2016 - best leader and party on key issues

August 2016 - Corbyn vs Smith, refugees, electoral reform

July 2016 - Brexit, Corbyn

June 2016 - Brexit

April 2016 - Brexit, junior doctor strikes

February 2016 - Brexit

January 2016 - EU renegotiations, junior doctors, gay clergy

December 2015 - Trump, Christmas, 2016 predictions

November 2015 - local services, Budget, climate change

October 2015 - tax credits, Corbyn, Putin, Assad, China

September 2015 - Corbyn policies, Syria, immigration, racism, trains

August 2015 - Labour leadership, Robots, Queen

July 2015 - economic growth and standards of living

June 2015 - Budget

June 2015 - Brexit, sex changes

May 2015 - Labour lessons, Brexit, Scottish nationalism

April/May 2015 - policies and leaders

SMS polls

European Parliament elections 05/04/19

Should May resign 28/03/19

Brexit blame 21/03/19

Brexit national humiliation 20/03/19

Second Meaningful Vote 12/03/19

Shamima Begum 20/02/19

Shamima Begum 14/02/19

Liam Neeson 05/02/19

Brexit - 30/01/19

Queen Brexit comments - 25/01/19

Brexit crisis, confidence vote 15/01/19

Stupid woman - 20/12/18

Brexit 'break faith' - 17/12/18

Brexit 'PR exercise' - 11/12/18

Brexit worth being poorer - 28/11/18

Brexit debate - 26/11/18

International Men's Day - 19/11/18

May Brexit deal - 15/11/18

Police priorities - 01/11/18

Smacking - 12/09/18

Boris divorce - 07/09/18

Chequers - 04/09/18

Summer holidays - 04/09/18

E-cigarettes - 16/08/18

Council tax - 14/08/18

Boris Johnson on burkas - 08/08/17

Heatwave - 25/07/18

EU Referendum cheating - 17/07/18

Trump UK visit - 13/07/18

Brexit post Chequers - 09/07/18

Social media bullying - 06/07/18

NHS 70th Birthday - 29/06/18

Brexit dividend for the NHS - 18/06/18

World Cup - 12/06/18

Test cricket - 16/05/18

Rudd resignation - 30/04/18

Windrush scandal - 26/04/18

Prince Charles Commonwealth - 19/04/18

Post-Syria airstrikes - 16/04/18

Pre-Syria airstrikes - 11/04/18

Facebook data breach - 21/03/18

Russia relations - 15/03/18

Oxfam scandal - 12/02/18

Social care and council tax - 08/02/18

Presidents Club - 26/01/18

France relations - 17/01/18

Rail fare hike - 02/01/18

Dinner for one - 22/12/17

Passport colour - 22/12/17

Returning IS fighters - 01/11/17

Texting while driving - 24/10/17

No deal vs bad deal - 11/10/17

When should May resign - 07/10/17

May conference speech - 05/10/17

Credit card debts - 28/09/17

Uber - 22/09/17

Royal children private school - 06/09/17

May resign good or bad for Conservatives - 30/08/17

Stop and search - 09/08/17

Austerity - 12/07/17

Arming police - 05/06/17

Leaders debates - 19/04/17

Snap election - 18/04/17

Military intervention in Syria - 06/04/17

May Brexit trust, Scottish independence - 29/03/17

Article 50 - 24/03/17

Care if Scotland independent - 22/03/17

Should there be indyref2 - 13/03/17

National insurance, early election - 08/03/17

Austerity - 07/03/17

Trump travel ban UK - 30/01/17

Trump impact UK - 25/01/17

Single market - 17/01/17

Postal strikes - 19/12/16

FA sex abuse - 02/12/16

Legalising cannabis - 21/11/16

Trump impact UK & US - 10/11/16

Article 50 trigger without MPs - 03/11/16

May Brexit trust - 20/10/16

Scottish independence - 12/10/16

Military intervention Aleppo - 11/10/16

Single market vs freedom of movement - 30/09/16

Junior doctor strikes - 02/09/16

Beach safety - 26/08/16

Overdraft fees cap - 09/08/16

Interest rates post-rise - 05/08/16

Banks vs under mattress - 03/08/16

Snap election, May vs Corbyn - 11/07/16

May vs Corbyn - 07/07/16

Tory leadership - 30/06/16

EU ref campaigns impact - 22/06/16

Republican referendum - 09/06/16

EU knowledge - 04/06/16

Economic turmoil vs immigration - 03/06/16

Obama EU post-visit - 25/04/16

Best Prince song - 22/04/16

Obama EU pre-visit - 22/04/16

Cameron Panama papers - 08/04/16

Nationalise Port Talbot steelworks - 01/04/16

Compassionate Conservatives? - 21/03/16

Sugar tax - 16/03/16

EU ref scaremongering - 07/03/16

Refugees - 20/01/16

English national anthem - 13/01/16

Syria airstrikes - 03/12/15