This is a repository copy of Geographies of Brexit and its aftermath: voting in England at the 2016 referendum and the 2017 general election. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/131643/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Johnston, R.J., Manley, D., Pattie, C.J. orcid.org/0000-0003-4578-178X et al. (1 more author) (2018) Geographies of Brexit and its aftermath: voting in England at the 2016 referendum and the 2017 general election. Space and Polity, 22 (2). pp. 162-187. ISSN 1356-2576 https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2018.1486349 This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Space and Polity on 28/06/2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13562576.2018.1486349 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. 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[email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Space and Polity For Peer Review Only Geographies of Brexit and its Aftermath: Voting in England at the 2016 Referendum and the 2017 General Election Journal: Space and Polity Manuscript ID CSPP-2017-0028.R1 Manuscript Type: riginal Article Keywords: Brexit, England, 2017 election, Geography URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cspp Page 1 of 34 Space and Polity 1 2 3 4 Geographies of Brexit and its Aftermath: Voting in England at the 2016 5 6 Referendum and the 2017 General Election 7 8 Abstract. Much has been written since the 2016 Brexit referendum regarding the divides 9 within British society that the vote illustrated – including geographical divides – and their 10 influence on the outcome of the 2017 general election. Focusing on England, this paper 11 explores the extent and significance of those geographical divides at the 2016 referendum, 12 at a variety of spatial scales – concluding that apart from a major difference between parts 13 of inner London and the rest of England these were largely insignificant. Turning to the 14 2017 general election, analyses show that this return to a predominantly two-party system 15 within England largely involved a replication of the geography of the 2015 general election 16 outcome.For A new electoral Peer map of ReviewEngland did not eme rgeOnly from the divisions that Brexit 17 stimulated: the country is divided along class lines, with London standing out as different 18 from all other regions. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 For British citizens who did not live there, London came to have a “foreign” aspect, 28 deepening their sense that the metropolitan “elite” residing in the capital was somehow 29 alienated from the rest of the country (Applebaum, 2017, 56). 30 31 Of the fifty local jurisdictions where the vote to remain in the EU was strongest, only eleven 32 were not in London or Scotland, and most of these were areas with large universities. In a 33 country divided on unfamiliar lines, London – home to the political, business and media elite 34 – was profoundly at odds with the country that it dominates and overshadows. London 35 wholeheartedly embraced Europe, even as most of England emphatically rejected it. The 36 same story played out in microcosm across the nation. Diverse urban areas and university 37 towns returned large Remain majorities, but found themselves swimming against the tide, 38 as the bulk of English local jurisdictions backed Leave (Ford and Goodwin, 2017, 25). 39 40 In terms of what the EU referendum has revealed, the UK is clearly fragmented with notable 41 42 differences between people and places. There is some truth in a regional reading of the 43 referendum results whereby London … stands apart from parts of the East Midlands, West 44 Midlands, the East, and Yorkshire and The Humber in terms of its (decreased) support for 45 Leave. However, the splits are not as simple as sometimes they have been portrayed: there 46 is variation within regions, with notable differences between large cities and towns … and 47 smaller towns and rural regions (Harris and Charlton, 2016, 2126) 48 49 50 Much was written in the aftermath regarding the social and economic divides exposed by the result 51 of the UK’s 2016 referendum on whether to leave the European Union. Two major cleavages were 52 identified (by, for example, Ashcroft, 2017; Curtice, 2017a, 2017b; Surridge, 2017 – but also 53 Bhambra, 2017): between those with no or few education qualifications and those with extensive 54 qualifications (though see Antonucci et al.’s – 2017a – modification of this); and between the young 55 and the old. These interacted: old people with few qualifications were more likely to vote Leave than 56 their younger contemporaries in similar situations. Additionally, the different groups tend to live in 57 58 1 59 60 URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cspp Space and Polity Page 2 of 34 1 2 3 separate parts of the country – in different regions (London has many more well-educated 4 cosmopolitans than other regions, for example) and different types of place (university cities have 5 more cosmopolitans than declining mining and industrial towns). The nation was also divided 6 geographically, therefore. But was there more to that geography than a simple reflection of that 7 socio-economic divide? Goodwin and Heath (2016a) identified ‘a significant “interaction effect” 8 between a person’s level of education and the educational profile of the area where they live. … 9 Graduates who live in low-skilled communities were more likely to vote for Brexit, and more similar 10 to those with low education, than graduates who live in high-skilled communities’. The result was a 11 country ‘deeply divided along not only social but also geographical lines’. Indeed, Ivlevs and Veliziotis 12 (2017) showed that in areas with high levels of immigration from EU sources, whereas older, low- 13 income and unemployed residents expressed a decline in their life satisfaction levels, younger, 14 better-qualified and higher-income residents of the same areas reported an increase. 15 16 For Peer Review Only Few analyses have explored those geographical lines in detail (though see Harris and Charlton, 2016; 17 18 Beecham et al., 2017); most simply examined differences across the UK’s major regions and London, 19 Scotland and Northern Ireland stood out as the only ones returning majority support for Remain. 20 Both Scotland and Northern Ireland have distinctive political cultures that were highly significant in 21 determining the outcome (on Scotland, see Gallagher, 2017). Were there any other clear 22 geographical elements to the pattern of voting at the referendum? Although overall the outcome 23 nationally was very close, with 51.9 per cent voting for Leave and 48.1 per cent for Remain, there 24 was very considerable variation in the degree of support across England. Among the 326 local 25 authorities for which the results were reported, the percentage voting for Leave varied from 21.4 to 26 75.6 with a mean of 54.5 and a standard deviation of 10.0. The gap between voting Leave or Remain 27 was 40 percentage points or more in favour of Leave in nine authorities and there were eleven 28 where the gap was 40 points or more in favour of Remain.1 At the finer ward scale, among those for 29 which data were available (see below) the percentage voting Leave varied from 12.2 to 82.5 with a 30 mean of 52.2 and a standard deviation of 14.5; there were twenty-six where the percentage 31 supporting Leave exceeded that supporting Remain by more than 50 points and seventy-one where 32 support for Remain was at least 50 points larger than support for Leave. Despite the overall 33 closeness of the outcome, therefore, there were very substantial geographical differences within 34 England which need to be explored.2 The only detailed analysis addressing this is by Beecham et al. 35 (2016): this shows that although the main determinants of the level of voting Brexit across all local 36 authorities – qualifications and professional employment – had a similar impact in each region, other 37 variables, which had much less impact overall, varied regionally in the strength of their relationships 38 39 with voting differences; there were local as well as national geographies. 40 41 Geographical studies of voting patterns distinguish between what are generally termed 42 compositional and contextual effects (the terminology is from Thrift, 1983). Most people’s voting 43 decisions are taken to promote their self-interests, supporting the party, candidate or referendum 44 issue that best represents their attitudes. These are compositional effects and if they dominate 45 decision-making then the geography of an electoral outcome should reflect the geography of the 46 social groups – such as social classes – sharing particular attitudes. But it may be that, usually in 47 addition to these effects, people in certain places are more likely to vote for one outcome rather 48 than another, reflecting local influences: these are contextual effects. Most studies of British voting 49 50 1 51 The authorities giving the largest support for Leave included seven in eastern England (Boston; South 52 Holland; Castle Point; Thurrock; Great Yarmouth; Fenland; and East Lindsey); the other two were in the East 53 Midlands – Bolsover and Mansfield.