Voters with other priorities
While the opposition and their remain allies argue endlessly about tactics to block a no deal Brexit the Johnson led government has been making policy and spending announcements designed to win over voters for who Brexit may not be their top priority.
Virtually every poll taken on the most important issue for the last 3 years has had Brexit at the top. There are substantial numbers of voters for who leaving or not leaving the EU is without doubt their top priority. But there are also significant numbers who do not give this as their top priority. So who are they and what do they prioritise? Using the BMG Research value clans and recent polling data here I look at what people consider to be the most important issue facing society today.
The Value Clans developed by BMG Research are useful here for showing how different groups prioritise different things (and how this might matter for how they vote in any impending general election and how parties might stitch coalitions of voters together).
For those unfamiliar with the Value Clans you can read about them here
We begin by looking at the clans where concern about Brexit is the greatest (no differentiation is made here about whether this is concern about the process, undoing the referendum result or the wider impact of leaving the EU).
That Brexit is a concern for a large proportion of voters in all value clans is clear but it is not a majority of voters in all clans, and in all clans there are at least 45% of voters who give another issue as the top priority. It seems very likely that this top priority will feature in the electoral calculus of these voters. So what is worrying those voters who don’t worry most about Brexit? The five main issues concerning voters aside from Brexit are healthcare, the cost of living, crime, the environment and immigration. Which of these people are concerned about varies, perhaps unsurprisingly, by the things they value and therefore by clan.
We can see here how electoral coalitions can be forged around key issues, beyond Brexit, among voters who have other priorities. The Global green Community and Orange Book groups share a high level of concern about the enviornment while, the Proud and Patriotic State and Bastion of Trade and Industry groups are notable for having a high level of concern about immigration and asylum (something that has been in decline among the electorate as a whole). Healthcare and the NHS features as a concern among all the clans, and we might expect this to feature strongly in a general election campaign for all parties. For the Modern Working Life clan (a key ‘swing’ clan between the Conservatives and Labour in 2015–2017 ) concern about Crime is seen as the top priority by almost as many as healthcare, while crime also features as an important issue among almost all the other clans (notably not the most Labour leaning clan in 2017 the Global Green Community).
While commentators and the politial elite focus relentlessly on Brexit, other issues matter to ‘ordinary voters’ across the country. There is no doubt that Brexit will feature in any general election campaign; but at general elections people also think about other things. And while the ‘remain’ group of parties and MP’s are focussed on how to stop a No Deal Brexit, the government have been announcing policies that directly tap into these other concerns voters have. Money for the NHS, extra police, changes to criminal justice system, changes to the immigration system all policies which will speak to these voters and their concerns.
While the parties most closely associated with particular positions on the EU (Brexit party on the leave side and LibDems on the remain side) are likely to continue to benefit from a flow of voters who see this as their top priority, the Conservative and Labour parties will also need to think about how to hold on to the groups who supported them in 2017 but for whom Brexit is far from the whole story. The irony may be that in the ‘Brexit’ election, it could be those who care more about other issues who decide the outcome.