Do British voters really live in “political bubbles”?

Nearly half of Labour voters would feel negatively about a family member or friend voting Conservative.

Pro-EU supporters demonstrating outside Downing Street on Brexit Day on 31 January 2020. (Photo By Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

The US, as has long been clear, is a politically polarised place. Last year, four in ten Americans said they had no friends of an opposing political persuasion: 39 per cent of Donald Trump voters reported they had no friends who backed Joe Biden in the election, while 42 per cent of Biden voters said they had none who supported Trump.

Here in Britain, do voters live in similar political bubbles? The Brexit debate divided us, but Opinium research conducted last week found that just one in five Leave and Remain voters said they had no friends with an opposing view in 2016, a far cry from the polarisation seen on the other side of the Atlantic.