The 2016 Referendum, Brexit and the Left Behind: an Aggregate‐
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The Political Quarterly The 2016 Referendum, Brexit and the Left Behind: An Aggregate-level Analysis of the Result MATTHEW J. GOODWIN AND OLIVER HEATH Abstract Why did Britain vote for Brexit? What was the relative importance of factors such as educa- tion, age, immigration and ethnic diversity? And to what extent did the pattern of public support for Brexit across the country match the pattern of public support in earlier years for eurosceptic parties, notably the UK Independence Party (UKIP)? In this article we draw on aggregate-level data to conduct an initial exploration of the 2016 referendum vote. First, we find that turnout was generally higher in more pro-Leave areas. Second, we find that public support for Leave closely mapped past support for UKIP. And third, we find that support for Leave was more polarised along education lines than support for UKIP ever was. The implication of this finding is that support for euroscepticism has both widened and nar- rowed—it is now more widespread across Britain but it is also more socially distinctive. Keywords: referendum, Britain, voting, European Union, UKIP WRITING in the aftermath of Britain’s first ref- referendum in 1975 had delivered a level of erendum on its membership of the then- public support for the pro-Europeans that had European Community, held on 5 June 1975, been beyond their dreams, then the result that David Butler and Uwe Kitzinger observed arrived forty-one years later realised their how that earlier vote was of interest for nightmares. When all votes had been counted, mainly three reasons. First, it had delivered 51.9 per cent of the electorate had voted to an unambiguous public endorsement of Bri- leave the European Union and 48.1 per cent tain’s continued participation in the Com- had opted to remain. Leave won the vote in mon Market. With 67 per cent of voters the United Kingdom by 3.8 percentage votes opting to stay in the European Community, but its lead was even more striking in Eng- the public had returned a level of support land, where it extended to nearly 7 points. that was ‘beyond the dreams of pro-Eur- Leave also won the popular vote in Wales, opeans’. Second, for observers of party poli- securing 52.5 per cent, and only one month tics at the time the vote also represented an after the insurgent UK Independence Party historical episode of peculiar fascination, cut- (UKIP) had won its first (seven) seats on the ting across established patterns of party devolved Welsh Assembly. Only in Scotland, competition, in particular with regard to the Northern Ireland and London did the Leave Labour party, which had seen the referen- vote fail to surpass 50 per cent. The result sent dum crystallise and exacerbate internal ideo- shockwaves around the world, wiping more logical conflicts. Third, the vote was a than 3 trillion dollars off the value of financial distinct innovation in British constitutional markets in only a few days and prompting practice, being the first nationwide referen- eurosceptic parties in at least seven other dum in the country’s entire history.1 Member States to demand similar ‘British- Forty-one years later, on 23 June 2016, Bri- style’ referendums. tain held a second referendum on its relation- As in 1975, the outcome of the 2016 refer- ship with Europe, and one that impacted endum also shed light on tensions that had directly on all three of these areas, albeit in long been evident within domestic party pol- profoundly different ways. If the result of the itics. In the aftermath of a defeat that had © The Authors 2016. The Political Quarterly © The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2016 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA 1 been partly engineered by the eurosceptic These introductory observations under- tradition within his own party, David score the need to make sense of Brexit and Cameron, the Conservative Prime Minister explain the 2016 referendum result. In this since 2010, promptly resigned. The act trig- article we draw on aggregate-level data to gered a leadership election that would not conduct an initial exploration of the vote only determine the next Prime Minister but and identify areas that future individual- also push the centre-right party—and the level research will want to explore in greater country—down a more overtly eurosceptic depth. Why did the country vote for Brexit? path. The Labour party, meanwhile, which What was the relative importance of factors had officially campaigned to remain in the such as social class, age, immigration and EU, descended into turmoil as Jeremy Cor- ethnic diversity? And to what extent did the byn, its newly elected but unpopular leader, pattern of support for Brexit across the coun- faced immediate pressure to also resign. try map on to past campaigns by eurosceptic Labour MPs argued that Corbyn had failed parties, such as UKIP? While attempting to to demonstrate leadership and communicate shed light on the possible answers to these a compelling case for why Britain should questions, we will also reflect on what the remain in the EU, claims that were sup- result reveals about broader fault lines that ported by polling data released only weeks run through contemporary British politics before the referendum and which suggested and society. that nearly one in two Labour voters were unaware that Labour was advocating a Remain position.2 Amid the new landscape Brexit Britain: an overview of the the only unified parties appeared to be the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, who quickly results pledged to campaign at the next general The result of the 2016 referendum revealed a election for Britain to re-join the EU; the society which had, on the issues of EU mem- insurgent UKIP, which, twenty-three years bership and immigration, become divided by after its formation, had achieved its defining social class, generation and geography. The goal of withdrawal from the EU; and the Leave campaign, which in the final weeks Scottish National Party (SNP), which argued focused heavily on immigration, received its that the result revealed the need for a second strongest support in the West Midlands (59.3 independence referendum in Scotland. per cent), a historic bastion of eurosceptic and Lastly, and as reflected in the positioning anti-immigration sentiment, followed by the of the SNP, while the 1975 vote attracted East Midlands (58.8 per cent), the North-East interest because of its constitutional innova- (58 per cent), Yorkshire and the Humber (57.7 tion, the referendum result in 2016 posed a per cent) and Eastern England (56.5 per cent). direct and far more profound challenge to The Leave campaign attracted its weakest the British constitutional settlement. In the support in Scotland (38 per cent), London first instance the result required Parliament (40.1 per cent) and Northern Ireland (44.2 per to sustain a pro-Brexit policy that was cent). Leave surpassed 70 per cent of the vote opposed by most MPs, which, as Vernon in 14 local authorities, many of which had Bogdanor has observed, is an event without been targeted by UKIP at previous local, precedent in British history.3 While it has European and general elections. In descend- been estimated that 421 of the 574 con- ing rank order, authorities that delivered the stituencies in England and Wales voted to strongest Leave vote were Boston, South Hol- leave the EU, we calculate that only 148 MPs land, Castle Point, Thurrock, Great Yarmouth, in England and Wales voted the same way.4 Fenland, Mansfield, Bolsover, East Lindsey Meanwhile, that Northern Ireland and Scot- and North East Lincolnshire. Leave also land voted to remain in the EU as England polled strongly in a large number of northern and Wales voted to leave has not only and often Labour-held authorities, recruiting revived calls for Scottish independence but at least 65 per cent of the vote in Hartlepool, also sparked new concerns about how the Redcar and Cleveland, Middlesbrough, Black- border between Northern Ireland and the pool, Burnley, Stoke-on-Trent, Walsall, Don- Irish Republic will be managed. caster, Barnsley and Rotherham, as well as in 2MATTHEW J. GOODWIN AND O LIVER H EATH The Political Quarterly © The Authors 2016. The Political Quarterly © The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2016 traditionally Labour-held areas in parts of social liberalism, multiculturalism and EU Wales, such as Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr membership, left-behind working-class voters Tydfil. At the constituency level it has and older social conservatives were united been estimated that while three-quarters of by an altogether different set of values that Conservative-held constituencies voted to translated into support for a more authoritar- leave the EU, seven in ten Labour-held seats ian and nativist response. voted the same way.5 Building on this research, we will now Such areas reveal how Leave won its examine the results of the 2016 referendum strongest support in specific types of areas: in more depth, exploring whether authorities communities that tend to be more economi- with high concentrations of ‘left-behind’ cally disadvantaged than average, where groups were also more likely to vote to leave average levels of education are low and the the EU. In doing so, we seek to answer two local population is heavily white. Such areas questions. Do the results of Britain’s 2016 contrast very sharply with those that gave referendum suggest a hardening of the lines Remain its strongest support. Aside from between the ‘haves and the have-nots’ that Gibraltar, where 95.9 per cent voted Remain, in earlier years had underpinned the rise of the vote to remain in the EU was strongest UKIP? Or has Britain’s eurosceptic move- in the London authority of Lambeth, fol- ment broadened its social appeal, making lowed by Hackney, Foyle in Northern these lines of conflict between different social Ireland, Haringey, the City of London, groups less distinctive? To examine the Islington, Wandsworth, Camden, Edinburgh extent to which these factors are associated and then East Renfrewshire in Scotland and with the Leave vote, we draw on local the young and affluent city of Cambridge.