tbh the "support for the death penalty" correlation is pretty consistent with the view of young social liberals vs older social conservatives. It's a pretty good proxy variable for those groups.
(I doubt many Leave voters even realised they needed to vote leave the EU to allow for the possibility of peacetime death penalties; it certainly wasn't a campaign issue!)
Yes, but what I should have expressed more clearly is that it's a better predictive variable than mere age.
Not the death penalty specifically, but anti-ECHR campaigning has been going on for years. (Yes, I know that's not quite the same as the EU). And I do feel that there is a big, vague punitive component to both Brexit and Trumpism.
(I doubt many Leave voters even realised they needed to vote leave the EU to allow for the possibility of peacetime death penalties; it certainly wasn't a campaign issue!)