EU referendum: Will England's Euro 2016 performance affect the vote?

Football fortunes can sway national opinion when it comes to politics - but impact is hard to predict

England fans in Marseille
England fans in Marseille during Euro 2016
(Image credit: Getty)

It has long been thought that Labour's Harold Wilson, ahead in the polls, lost the 1970 general election because England were dumped out of the World Cup by Germany four days before the vote.

"It deflated the mood in the nation," football journalist Keir Radnedge told the BBC. "Therefore, they looked for something new. Something new in that case was voting in a new government."

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