FEAR & HOPE 2019 HOW BREXIT IS CHANGING WHO WE ARE Rosie Carter and Nick Lowles FEAR AND HOPE 2019 This Fear & HOPE report has been made possible with the generous support of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation HOPE not hate Charitable Trust PO Box 61383, London, N19 9ER Telephone 020 7952 1184 Email: [email protected] http://charity.hopenothate.org.uk Registered office: Suite 1, 3rd Floor, 11-12 St. James’s Square, London SW1Y 4LB FEAR AND HOPE 2019 CONTENTS Introduction 4 Executive Summary 5 THE AUTHORS How Brexit changed Britain 8 Introducing The New Tribes 15 ROSIE CARTER Rosie is senior policy Identity 18 officer at HOPE not Hate. She co-led the National Conversation A realignment in British politics? 25 on Immigration, the largest ever public Fear, Hope & Loss 30 engagement on immigration, and Politics and Anti-Politics 34 conducts research on integration, public Brexit 42 attitudes, identity and political polarisation. She is a fellow of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and holds an MSc in Environment 48 Migration Studies from Oxford University. [email protected] Immigration 50 Islamophobia and the Conservative Party 54 NICK LOWLES Nick is founder and Jeremy Corbyn supporter 56 CEO of HOPE not hate and has co-authored Integration & Multiculturalism 58 the previous Fear and HOPE reports. Anti-Muslim Hatred 64 He has written seven books on extremism, The Tommy Robinson supporter 68 youth subculture and antiracist struggles and has worked on The appeal of the Far Right – and its limits 70 several TV investigations, including as a consultant on the award-winning England’s Labour’s antisemitism crisis 73 Shame. He is an independent member of the Government’s Anti-Muslim Hatred Working The Nigel Farage supporter 74 Group and advisory board of the Commission for Countering Extremism. He was previously editor of Searchlight magazine. Deal or No Deal, the future looks choppy 76 [email protected] Methodology 80 Fear and HOPE identity tribes: 2011-2018 82 Fear and Hope 2019 | July 2019 | 3 FEAR AND HOPE 2019 INTRODUCTION Welcome to Fear and HOPE 2019, the latest in our traditional political allegiances, so it had also our on-going analysis of British society and the altered our cultural and identity identities. attitudes of its citizens. This new report now identifies seven distinct We commissioned this report because we were groups in society, as opposed to the six in our keen to explore how Brexit, and the fact that we previous studies. Two of these new groups are were still in the EU after the date that we were positive toward immigration and multiculturalism, meant to have left, had affected us. We wanted and both are strongly Remain. Then there are to know how the Brexit debate had changed our two who are deeply hostile to immigration and political and cultural allegiances, whether it was multiculturalism, though one is more driven a simple case of Remain and Leave or – as we by Brexit than the other. The group that is not suspected – there were sub-groups within each as driven by Brexit is in turn more hostile to of these. immigration and Muslims, and also much more pessimistic about life and the future, as well as Our first report was in 2011, and British society more relaxed about violence. This is the group was still deeply traumatised by the economic where the supporters of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon crash and the beginning of austerity. Our follow- are most likely to be found. up February 2016 report reflected a country more at ease with itself – despite austerity, many We believe that our new seven tribe segmentation people were feeling more economically secure will make this report more useful for and this reflected more relaxed attitudes towards understanding British society today. immigration and multiculturalism. In another departure from our earlier reports, this Our third report, in July 2016, was conducted just edition of Fear and HOPE draws on a much wider after Britain voted to leave the European Union data set than we have used previously. While and reflected a complete change in attitudes. most of our report is based on a poll of 6,000 Those who had been most angry in our February people we conducted in late April 2019, we have 2016 report, and who voted most heavily to leave also drawn on over 15 other polls HOPE not hate the EU, were now the most content. Those had has commissioned over the past months. had been content, and who voted most heavily to In addition, we have also drawn on other remain, were now the most angry and resentful. data analytics to help us interpret society, Brexit had polarised Britain. including the use of Multi-Level Regression Fear and HOPE 2017 found this polarisation had with Poststratification (MRP) – a statistical continued and, if anything, had deepened. technique for estimating public opinion in small An increasing number of people were more geographic areas or sub-groups using national tolerant and open to immigration and opinion surveys. multiculturalism, but a quarter of society remained The culmination of this polling and advanced firmly opposed – and their views were hardening. data analysis is perhaps the most comprehensive The findings in this new report today are clear: study of opinion in Britain today. Brexit has changed Britain. Old allegiances As with previous reports, this study will help and affiliations have been ripped up. The anger guide our work over the next couple of years. from social liberals that was so palpable in the It will help us target the communities most immediate aftermath of the 2016 EU Referendum at threat from extremism, deliver the most has been replaced by frustration and anger from appropriate message and highlight areas where Brexiteers at our failure to leave. further research is required. We are also keen Because of these changes we decided that to make this data available to our partners and our previous Fear and HOPE identity tribe friends so they too can use it to improve their segmentation, breaking down society into six own work. groupings (ranging from more liberal to more In an increasingly complex world, understanding hostile views), was no longer sufficient. Just as the society around us will massively help our Brexit had driven a coach and horses through ability to engage in it. 4 | Fear and Hope 2019 | July 2019 FEAR AND HOPE 2019 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY BREXIT HAS CHANGED BRITAIN FEAR AND HOPE 2019 Brexit exposed many pre-existing social divisions, but it also added a new dimension to our identities – key HIGHLIGHTS that determined which information we chose to n The Brexit process is decaying public believe and how we saw others around us. trust in the political system, and there is n growing animosity between those who feel Almost three years on from the referendum, most strongly about Brexit. people continue to associate more strongly with Remain or Leave than any other political n Being a “leaver” or a “remainer” has or value-based position. When asked whether become part of identity politics for many, people consider themselves more of a Remain one to which people feel an emotional voter, or more of a Leave voter, the majority bond and a frame through which we of people (60%) now see themselves at the process information and make political extreme of either side. choices. But there remains a large section n of the population who are more ambivalent Britain is now overwhelmingly a country of about leaving the EU pessimists, the majority of people now more pessimistic than optimistic about the future. n There are significant divisions in our core Remain voters are most likely to be pessimistic- identities and how we see ourselves and although this group were more likely to have interpret the world around us, with a been optimistic prior to the referendum. Leave growing ‘culture war’ between those who voters became more optimistic following the celebrate diversity and those who perceive vote to leave the EU, an optimism that has not growing diversity as a challenge to their subsided much over 3 years. own position in the world n We have also seen people’s values change as n Our relationship with traditional political a result of which side of the referendum they parties is breaking, and the two party most identify with. Those with more liberal system in Britain is fracturing. Our polling views have reinforced and hardened their and modelling suggests that no party could support for immigration and multiculturalism, win a majority as it stands, and we may be overwhelmingly furious with the tone of the looking at months, if not years, of political referendum campaign and the result. deadlock. n The public continue to see Muslims as distinctly different – and overwhelmingly NEW TRIBES more negatively – than any other group. Since 2011, our Fear and HOPE reports have Anti-Muslim prejudice is concentrated studied public attitudes to a range of social among those who see immigration and issues, dividing the country into six ‘tribes’ multiculturalism most negatively, but is also based on the overlay between economic security present amongst people who generally have and cultural anxieties. Our 2019 Fear and HOPE otherwise liberal and tolerant attitudes. report introduces our seven new tribes to better n The British public now consider the far understand how Brexit has changed Britain, to right the greatest threat to public order, reflect the strength of our Brexit identities and a above Islamist extremism. Although far changing relationship with traditional politics. right narratives have become increasingly n Political trust and our expectations of Brexit mainstream, violence on the far right have created new fault lines in the British is a red line for most people, limiting population.