Volatility and Vote Switching (Part II Conservative 2017 voters)
This piece is the second half of an analysis of how voters might switch between parties based on their ‘brexit identity’. More details of the measures and the analysis of Labour voters can be found here. The analysis looks at how likely different groups of voters are to vote for different parties (measured on a 0 to 10 scale).
This group of voters are overwhelmingly leave identifiers, with almost 45% being very strong leave identifiers. The small proportion of very strong remain identifiers among 2017 Conservative voters may be important for understanding why the Conservative ‘remain’ vote has been tricky for other remain parties to mobilise.
Unsurprisingly, the likelihood of 2017 Conservative voters voting Labour is very low, regardless of their ‘Brexit identity’. It is in fact almost identical in shape to the likelihood of Labour 2017 voters moving to the Conservatives. Conservative-Labour tribalism is very much alive and well post-referendum (and may continue to contribute to the relevance of the ‘left-right’ divide in British politics in future elections)
The Conservatives are unlikely to lose voters to the Labour party in any great number, in the same way they are unlikely to win any over. The 2017 election was already polarised along this split.
Given the concentration of the 2017 vote among strong leave identifiers a more potent threat to the Conservative vote is likely to come in the shape of the Brexit Party. In total over half of the ‘very strong leave’ group give their likelihood of voting for the Brexit Party as 6/10 or higher. Given this also represents almost half of the total 2017 Conservative vote it leaves open the possibility of up to a quarter of 2017 Conservative voters moving to the Brexit Party (polling immediately after the EU Parliament election detected this). Initial polling suggested the change of leadership in the Conservative party could be enough to stem this flow but the danger remains present should the government (be seen as) failing to deliver on its Brexit commitment.
Like the Labour party, the Conservatives also face challenges on both flanks. The Liberal Democrats would expect to be well placed to pick up some votes from remain leaning and more ‘liberal’ Conservative voters disillusioned with the new direction of their party.
The very clear messaging the Lib Dems have adopted on Brexit is reflected in the polarisation of likelihood to vote for them among Conservative voters. The large group of strong leave identifiers are very unlikely to vote for the Liberal Democrats, with 70% rating this likelihood as 0/10. However, among the remain leaning Conservatives just under 40% rate the likelihood of ever voting LibDem as 6/10 or higher. This may not seem like much when they make up such a small proportion overall of 2017 Conservatives but as with other groups they are more likely to be concentrated in some areas than others, notably in London and in Scotland but also across other parts of England including in Yorkshire and Humberside.
Finally, has the development of a ‘Brexit identity’ shaken any of these voters from their connection to the Conservative party (as we saw with a small but important part of the 2017 Labour vote).
There is little evidence of this in the data here (despite the data being collected at the height of May’s troubles passing her deal and extending article 50). Over 70% of each group say their likelihood of voting Conservative is 6/10 or higher. In an election where keeping your votes and hoping the opposition loses theirs may be the only strategy this pattern could prove very important for the Conservatives, not withstanding the potential vulnerability to the Brexit party highlighted above 2017 Conservative voters are still quite well attached to the Conservative party electorally.
In a recently published piece (written back in May) I concluded
‘The next general election may well be a competition to see which party can retain its 2017 support most effectively in order to have the most legitimate claim to lead a potentially highly fragmented hung parliament.’
This still seems like a likely scenario. Brexit identities are likely to play a part in the next election, but these will be far from the whole story. Concentrations of types of voters in different types of constituencies will matter and assumptions based purely on ‘leave’ and ‘remain’ in constituencies are likely to be flawed. There is real potential for the system to fragment dramatically, with the LibDems gaining from Labour and the Conservatives (though fewer voters from the later) to achieve something close to their 2010 share of the vote, while the Brexit party may well match (if not exceed) the performance of UKIP in 2015. Neither of these on their own managed to ‘break’ the two party system completely but should they both occur at once (a fairly likely scenario) all bets are off.