North and South

A greater proportion of people in the North voted to leave the EU than in the South

Danny Dorling has written an editorial in the British Medical Journal. I am not sure why the BMJ is publishing editorials on the sociology of the Brexit vote. I am sure that there are links between public health and the vote, and that the vote will have consequences for public health, but I am not sure that these links can be satisfactorily addressed in a 700 word editorial.

There is one particularly curious claim in Prof. Dorling's editorial (my emphasis):

The outcome of the EU referendum has been unfairly blamed on the working class in the north of England, and even on obesity. However, because of differential turnout and the size of the denominator population, most people who voted Leave lived in the south of England.

I say that this claim is curious not just because it cites in support polling evidence rather than actual results, but also because it seems to ignore some fairly obvious calculations.

If we take regions in the North of England to include the North East, North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber, then 4,325,965 people in the North voted to Leave (according to figures from the Electoral Commission).

If we take regions in the South of England to include the South West, South East, and London, then 5,750,908 people in the South voted to Leave.

It's therefore true to say that more people voted to Leave in the South. But it's also misleading to say this. The electorate in the North is 11,053,689 people. The electorate in the South is 16,028,306 people. The proportion of registered voters in the North who voted to Leave was greater than the proportion in the South (39.1% compared to 35.9%).

When Prof. Dorling says that "most people who voted Leave lived in the South of England", this seems to be merely a consequence of the fact that more people live in the South of England than live in the North. Prof. Dorling presumably recognises this, and that's why he's included the qualification in bold above. I don't want to blame any region for Brexit — but let's at least be clear about which regions were more likely to vote for it.