How polarised is Brexit identity?
Since the EU referendum vote, the way that people voted has increasingly been seen as a source of identity, perhaps even replacing partisanship as a key identity driving political attitudes and behaviours. It is all too easy to assume that everyone has one of these identities, be it leave and remain, and that they are equally motivating for everyone. But just as not everyone held a party identity and strength of commitment varied, so too does the strength of people’s Brexit identity.
Using data from the British Election Study internet panel, we can look at not only whether people say they have a Brexit identity but also the strength of that identity. Using the questions below, taken from the most recent wave (wave 15) of the survey, conducted in March 2019, a five point scale measuring brexit identity is constructed.
Those who say their identity is weak, or who say they don’t have an identity based on the EU referendum are taken as a mid-point with strong and fairly strong remain and leave on either side.
Using this measure the British public are clearly polarised. Around 25% of the electorate are strong remain identifiers and 23% are strong leave identifiers. But perhaps a little less polarised than our political debate suggests. There are a little over half of the electorate not in these strong identity groups and almost a fifth of voters with no more than a weak attachment to a Brexit ‘side’. Many voters have other priorities.
Where are the most polarised places?
There are obvious variations here according to whether the region voted on average on remain or to leave. Remain voting London and Scotland have the largest proportions of strong remain identifiers. Despite the on-going commentary about what leave voters in the North think, this shows clearly that in the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside there are as many strong remain identifiers as strong leave ones. The North East of England, the Midlands and the East of England are the areas where strong leave identifiers out number strong remainers. There are (slightly) more strong leave identifiers in the South West than the North West or Yorkshire and Humberside and more strong remain identifiers in Yorkshire and Humberside than in the South East.
The full distribution of the measure also reflects the relative distribution of the vote in each region but shows that the proportion of those who do not have a ‘Brexit’ identity is similar across all regions. Those voters with other priorities are evenly spread across the country.
Brexit identity and Political Values
If we look at the values of these voters we can see again reflected in the strength of their identities the value positions that underpinned the original voting decisions.
As we move along the scale from strong remain to strong leave, there are only (very) small differences in terms of economic values, the traditional left-right of British politics but there is a steep and steady gradient from more liberal to more conservative. How strongly connected to remain and leave voters feel reflects their values on this ‘other’ dimension of British politics (we have also seen some indications that this identity may also drive further polarisation on this scale).
Finally, we can look at the voting preferences of these voters. Rather than using the ‘fixed option’ question which asks which party a person would vote for, the ‘likelihood’ of voting for each party (on a 0–10 scale) is used. This is especially useful outside of an election campaign and when voting is volatile as it takes into account where a voter may be equally or almost equally likely to vote for two or more parties. However, as the data were collected prior to the EU parliament elections and the election of new leaders for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats some care is needed with these figures.
Despite these health warnings, the chart above nonetheless sharpens our focus on the shape of party competition. Among strong leave identifiers the likelihood to vote for the party is almost the same for the Brexit Party as for the Conservatives, clearly a concern for Boris Johnson when considering how to ‘get Brexit done’ to the satisfaction of both Parliament and strong leaver identifiers. At the other end of the scale we can see why there is fierce competition among Labour and the Liberal Democrats for the ‘remain’ vote. The annoucement yesterday that the Liberal Democrats would, if elected as a majority government, revoke article 50 is a clear signal to this group that they are the most ‘remain’ party.
However, this is familiar ground. Less familiar and perhaps of greater interest in an upcoming election might be what those with weak or no identity do. The evidence here suggests that they are leaning Conservative and certainly there has been much since Johnson became Prime Minister aimed precisely at those voters with other things on their mind.