To start the year, the New Statesman has taken a step back from party politics to ask: what are the real fault lines in Britain today? Look at voting patterns in the 2015 general election and the EU referendum (and in elections in the US and Europe) and it becomes clear that the old division of “left vs right” does not tell the full story. Attitudes towards immigration, globalisation and cultural touchstones (the monarchy, religion, sexism and racism) complicate the picture.
As the New Statesman leader notes,
“The politics of left v right is being superseded by the politics of open v closed. In the UK, the referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU split both the Conservatives and Labour into Remainers and Leavers. For the rest of this decade and beyond, British politics will be defined by Brexit, and attitudes towards immigration will be more important than those towards capitalism. In the US, Donald Trump’s election similarly reshaped historical loyalties. His political programme of closed borders, higher government spending, trade tariffs and tax cuts borrowed from left and right. Like the Brexiteers, he managed to mobilise formerly inactive sections of the electorate.”
The result of recent upheavals is that class and income do not affect our political beliefs as simply as they once did. Labour has been described as an alliance of working class voters in northern England and Wales, plus more well-heeled metropolitans. Ukip is seen as a right-wing party, but its voters often agree with economic sentiments which are more usually associated with the left. (Carswellian libertarianism is a marginalised view within the membership, never mind its voters.) Immigration, higher rates of university attendance and the flow of young people into cities have also changed voting behaviour, as has the increasing age of our population and the fact that older people turn out to vote in greater numbers.
Below, six writers each tackle a “new divide” in British politics, and explore how it is changing what we want from our politicians.
“In 2010 the Conservatives secured 36.1 per cent of the vote across the country but underperformed that figure among ethnic minorities all the way up the income scale, contributing to the hung parliament. Even in 2015, the few disappointments for the triumphant Tories came in places where ethnic minorities were clustered: Ealing Central and Acton, Ilford North and Wolverhampton South-West. (As for Labour, the party became noticeably more reliant on ethnic-minority votes as some of its white voters moved to Ukip.)”
Stephen Bush asks if the racial divide in voting preferences is about to become starker – despite David Cameron’s best efforts.
City v country
“Across the Western world, cities are opting for progressive or establishment causes while the provinces vote for extremist or populist candidates. In Britain’s referendum on EU membership last June, most cities were markedly more pro-European than their hinterlands. The far-right presidential candidate Norbert Hofer won majorities in the Austrian countryside while the pro-Green Alexander Van der Bellen triumphed in Vienna, Salzburg and Linz. And polls suggest that, should the Front National’s Marine Le Pen win in France, it will be thanks to la France profonde.”
We tend to congregate towards people like ourselves, says Jonn Elledge. Is it any surprise the urban-rural divide is becoming so pronounced?
Closed v open
“In the 1990s, with social democrats in the ascendant, the historian David Marquand warned that unless we could provide effective “shelter from the neo-capitalist storm” social democracy would collapse. If the shelter was “illusory”, he argued, then “religious fundamentalism, ethnic cleansing, xenophobic nationalism, moral authoritarianism and the scapegoating of minorities” would offer “seductive escape routes” from “the insecurity, injustices and tensions that untamed capitalism brings”. It is fair to say that in 2016 Marquand’s nightmarish vision became real.”
Whether it’s Brexit or Trump, it feels as though the left has lost its traditional voter base. Tristram Hunt explains why it’s time to address a new cultural divide.
Graduates v non-graduates
“The demand for skilled, professional brain-work in sectors such as information technology, health and financial services has risen steadily even as globalisation and automation have sharply curtailed opportunities for the least skilled. The past three decades have been terrific for university graduates and terrible for unskilled school-leavers. So, it is no surprise if the former gravitate towards the status quo while the latter are attracted by radical alternatives.”
University graduates have had a great few years; unskilled school-leavers, not so much. It’s no wonder they vote differently, says Rob Ford.
Old v young
“Britain’s over-65s are less likely to be graduates than the younger generations, more likely to be homeowners, more likely to be white and more likely to believe immigration is out of control. All that affects how they vote; and, boy, do they vote: 78 per cent turned out in the 2015 general election, against 66 per cent across the population. Ninety per cent of them cast a ballot in the June 2016 referendum, where they were twice as likely as the under-25s to have voted to leave the European Union.”
The voting power of pensioners has long had a distorting effect on British politics, says Helen Lewis. Is it time to stop appeasing them?
Owners v renters
“While the Tories privileged owners, they neglected renters. The 2015 manifesto made no mention of private tenants. Social housing, Osborne and David Cameron believed, merely created more Labour voters. ‘They genuinely saw housing as a petri dish for voters,’ the former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg recalled. ‘It was unbelievable.'”
Can the divide between home-owners and renters be bridged, asks George Eaton? After Brexit, we may find out.
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This article appears in the 04 Jan 2017 issue of the New Statesman, Divided Britain