One of the lasting symbols of Labour’s failed 2015 election campaign is a mug that promised “controls on immigration”. Like many Ed Miliband initiatives, this was a compromise that pleased nobody. Socially conservative voters concerned about immigration dismissed it as empty gesture politics, while liberal-left activists attacked it as the appeasement of intolerance. The mug, all now agree, was a bad idea. Yet the issue the mug clunkily attempted to address is a serious one, and has not gone away. There is a growing divide of social values in British politics which splits the left’s core electorate down the middle – and Labour, at present, has no effective strategy to address it.
The underlying motors of this value divide are three generational trends: rising levels of education, rising diversity, and shifting social norms. Young voters joining the electorate are forming their views in a markedly more diverse and socially liberal Britain than the one that shaped the outlook of their grandparents. As a result, they have very different views on issues such as national identity, multiculturalism, immigration and social change.
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