POLSIS (Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham) hosted the first of their seminar series last week which saw the legendary Professor John Curtice – the nation’s leading expert on elections, voting and public opinion and “the man who won the 2017 elections” – assess last year’s EU Referendum result and British politics post-Brexit.
City-REDI’s Charlotte Hoole and Chloe Billing were at the seminar to join in the debate – a recording of the presentation can be found here. However, for those wanting a quick summary, the key points to take away are presented below.
Professor John Curtice’s analysis was based on three key sources; British Social Attitudes survey 2015 (a mixed mode probability panel), British Election Study (Internet panel), and Commercial opinion polls.
The EU Referendum was a disruptive moment for British politics, cutting across the traditional values that have shaped voter patterns for many decades. No longer a matter of Left and Right wing politics, evidence was presented that the Referendum result was driven by:
- Social Liberalism (Remain) versus Social Conservatism (Leave): the former driven by morals and customs that support individual choice and a value of diversity, whilst the latter upholding the responsibility of society to enforce common codes.
- Age: older people were more likely to vote Leave, whilst young people were more likely to vote Remain.
- Education: only 22% of voters with a university degree voted to Leave, whilst 72% of voters with no formal education voted to Leave.
How did Brexit shape the 2017 general election?
- Leave voters were more likely to vote Conservative, and amongst the Leave voters the Conservatives gained ground.
- Remain voters were more likely to vote Labour, and amongst the Remain voters Labour gained ground.
- Labour gained more ground with Remain voters than Conservatives did with Leave voters – this led to a higher increase in the percentage share of Labour voters.
- Those who want to control immigration were more likely to vote Conservative.
- The Labour vote increased amongst those who want to stay in the Single Market.
- The Conservative vote increased amongst those not willing to do a deal with Europe.
What does all of this tell us? The evidence suggests that British politics has entered into a multi-dimensional space whereby social liberalism versus social conservatism, age and education are now the biggest influences on voting patterns in Britain. To this effect, social class appears to be no longer an important factor – for example, Labour now representing the ‘working professional graduate’ rather than the ‘working class’. The disruption is also beginning to create within-Party tensions – for example the Conservatives supported by an electorate that wants a hard Brexit but which goes against their traditional value of supporting big businesses.
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