No, poll respondents weren’t “brimming with confidence” about Brexit, despite a UK Express news story in Aug. 2018.

The story, “Britain will be BETTER OFF after Brexit: Poll shows businesses BRIMMING with confidence,” claimed maritime business members answered a poll favorably. Specifically, the poll said 63% of respondents had an export boost, 59% had no problems getting workers, and more. But, that isn’t what the poll found.

Reader Tim Partlett complained to the UK press regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation over the article.

Parlett pointed out problems with the poll reporting. For example, while the Express claimed businesses said Britain “would become stronger after Brexit,” that wasn’t in the poll. “The complainant said the article had suggested that the poll had directly asked respondents whether Britain would be better off after Brexit, as opposed to remaining in the EU, when this was not the case,” IPSO noted.

The Express declined to comment to iMediaEthics about the ruling.

While the Express stood by its report, saying it thought the poll essentially found respondents believed Brexit would become stronger, IPSO rejected that argument. As such, the Express‘s article was “significantly inaccurate.”

“The headline, sub-headline, and first line of the article had made categorical claims of fact about the findings of the poll, which were not presented as conjecture or as the interpretation of the body which had carried out the poll,” IPSO ruled. “The assertions that those polled were ‘brimming with confidence’ about Brexit, and believed that Britain would be ‘stronger’ or ‘better off’ after leaving the European Union, were not supported by the findings quoted in the article, or the complete data.”