The polls are garbage

I don't feel like I have a dog in the hunt this election season, but the polls are entirely useless:

The polls immediately before the [Brexit] election leaned “Remain” or showed a 44%-to-44% tie, with 12% undecided. The referendum’s result was 52%-to-48% “Leave.” The idea that the undecideds broke 2-to-1 for “Leave”—against the status quo—is not tenable. That said, the pollsters are not at fault. The pollsters cannot conduct an accurate poll because voters are unwilling to tell pollsters how they intend to vote. It is that simple. 

Why are the voters doing this? 

The UK now has its own version of America’s Bradley/Wilder effect: people—decent, ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding people—are afraid of abuse and reprisals if they reveal their true political preferences. People are tactically deceiving the pollsters because the pattern-and-practice of British politics is now: 

(i) to demonize opponents; 

(ii) to invade and shut down their peaceful political meetings and conferences (and then to “justify” speech suppression as “free speech” or other lawful protest); 

(iii) to threaten and physically assault their party leaders and members; 

(iv) to destroy their political posters and/or to paint over them (and then to call their vandalism “art”); and,

(v) to use the state’s regulatory authorities against private citizens for expressing (or, merely, holding) unpopular political views.

It looks like the polls were off by 8% because of this.  So what's the percentage here?  Whatever it is, it's not zero.

(via)