iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

When a third of leave voters (about 17% of all who voted) gave immigration as the main reason for their vote, they’re outnumbered 2:1 by leave voters who gave a different main reason, but it’s still millions of people highly (presumably mostly negatively) focused on immigration …

000

Ah, well. Possible of course. In which case we’re free to make up whatever we want! But in this case, two independently conducted post-referendum polls (at least) carried out in 2016 & 2018 by respected organisations got pretty much the same results.

Only 33% of leave voters (= 17% of all voters) gave immigration as their main reason for their vote. Of course, that could have “swung it”, in a narrow sense of everything else being a given & just addressing one factor: it was a pretty close vote! But that’s to ignore bigger factors.

(I’ll have another go later: perhaps we’ll find we’re closer to agreement than it seems. If I’ve an appeared a bit tetchy - sorry - it’s because the outstanding (per BES) characteristic/attitude of leave voters is so widely misunderstood 10 years later. “Motivation”? Happy to discuss further).

000

I don’t think I am. Nor am I alone (as already noted). The evidence on authoritarianism as an outstanding characteristic of leave voters, & on achieving authoritarian results as their (most/highly) desired outcome of Brexit, is strong. Call it motivation. Call it something else. Happy to discuss.

200

Why isn’t it a surprise? I didn’t refer to the “red wall” or any other set of locations. I don’t believe, & the data don’t support, that postcodes/ economic status etc. were highly significant drivers: I’ve tried to set out why. What you call “social conservatism” (I’d use different terms) was.

100

In case of interest: more on the relationship between support for the reintroduction of capital punishment & the “leave” vote in the 2016 EU referendum ⬇️

000

I know Stoke well. In case helpful (UK, not Stoke) ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/andr...

100

⬇️ bsky.app/profile/andr...

000

BES’ work on its own is highly suggestive (I’m not the only one who thinks so). Add YouGov & it’s more than that. These & other polls throw doubt on widespread narratives about what drove the leave vote. No one factor explains all. But some factors turn out to be more equal than others! /13. End

These are significant figures & have to be seen in the context of the way the questions were structured & asked. But 33% (of 52% who voted leave, of course) is far from overwhelming. It doesn’t suggest either a UK population, or a leave cohort, negatively obsessed with immigration. /12.

100

Since immigration comes up a lot, I’ll reiterate from my 🧵 that Lord Ashcroft’s 2016 poll directly asked what voters’ main reason for their referendum vote was. 33% of leave voters said immigration. Oxford University got similar results in 2018. /11.

300

BES’ work is particularly valuable here because it so thoroughly compares so many different factors that it’s possible to get a clear view of what’s significant & what isn’t. Economic status, not much. Support for capital punishment, way, way out there. /10.

100

This is no longer merely suggestive. We can argue about exactly what levels of conscious/unconscious motivation leave voters had in respect of capital punishment (etc.) when voting, but to suggest authoritarian attitudes (call them what we will) weren’t a major factor would be misleading. /9.

Again, the leave % for capital punishment - but in this case to a direct question about what Brexit should deliver - was strong (a bit lower than the correlation in BES), the remain % was low, the contrast stark. /8.

200

YouGov went a more direct route, asking leave & remain voters what they wanted brought back after Brexit. /7.

100

Of course, if they had been, great care would’ve had to be taken over how such a question was posed & interpreted. A powerful feature of correlative analysis of the sort done by BES here is its ability to reveal seemingly unconnected issues which might even be obscured by direct questioning. /6.

100

Again, highly suggestive. And, one might think, perhaps likely to be allied to authoritarian views (or lack of them). The questions “did you vote leave because you want the death penalty back” or “… because you feel a lack or control over your life” weren’t asked directly by BES. /5.

100

Some similarly strong correlation/ contrast combos were also highlighted by BES, such as “locus of control” (leave voters strongly tended not to feel they had control over their lives, remain voters strongly tended to feel they did). /4.

200

This was considered highly suggestive by experts quoted in the BBC article, and by others not quoted. And by me (but no one cares too much about that 🙂). /3.

100

BES asked a large catalogue of questions & found both a very strong correlation between support for the death penalty & leave voting, & a stark contrast to remain voting, where there was a very weak correlation. Both the high (leave) correlation & the degree of contrast were marked & unusual. /2.

100

Two post-referendum polls are in play concerning the death penalty. Perhaps others, but I’ll focus on the two. BES (Oct 2016) & YouGov (Feb 2017). BES sample 24K, YouGov 2K leave voters, 0.8K remain. /1.

100

Leave voters’ support in Stoke for bringing back hanging may be anomalously low. Maybe BES, who polled 24K, people have the numbers somewhere. In the UK at large it is/was what it is/was. YouGov got a similar outcome in 2017. In both cases, the difference between leave & remain voters is stark.

100

Like you, I’ve been through all the Eurobarometer numbers, & many more besides. They don’t paint a picture of a country against immigration, or negatively obsessed by it. But, of course, a loud, obnoxious minority can cause serious damage to individuals, communities & the country at large. /2. End

It’s in the Eurobarometer file you share further down: 68% excluding a small number of don’t knows (63% raw). Between 2015 & 2019 the figure was always between 68% & 78% (63% & 72% raw). These are big majorities. /1.

It interesting. There’s a really strong correlation. That’s highly suggestive. But is it causative? In fact the British Election Study asked about voting intentions, so we’re a lot closer to causation (if people were being honest in their answers, of course, but that’s always a thing).

100

Important correction to post 2, above: NOT job seeking! Sorry. Writing in too much of a hurry.

040

Important correction: NOT job seeking! Sorry. Writing in too much of a hurry.

000

I’m (genuinely) missing something, I think. The difference between voting intention in the sense of (however misplaced or unrealistic) “my *intention* in voting X was to bring back hanging”, and “I voted X *in order* to bring back hanging”, is unclear to me.

100

I’m not sure I agree (or don’t!). But, anyway ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/andr...

000

You can say it, think, feel it. And your experiences are what they have been: I don’t doubt them, I know them to be true for many. That doesn’t turn a country which was heavily in favour of EU freedom of movement for people (and more widely, positive about immigration) into one which wasn’t.

As it happens, though, the British Election Study work I’m referring to, specifically asked people about their *voting intentions* in the EU referendum. /2. End

100

Correlation isn’t causation, certainly. Which is why all the other correlative explanations frequently advanced as causative are - even if the correlations weren’t in fact so weak - highly misleading. /1.

100

Some leave voters didn’t have the reintroduction of hanging (etc.) as their main motivation for voting to leave the EU (or their main hope for the UK’s post EU future). The great majority did. Whether they would talk about it that way with a remainer, or in social situations, is another matter.

I don’t think you know about me, or my personal/family circumstances, and how much I might directly know about what you describe. That aside, press and politicians legitimising open expressions of hate among the minority already inclined to hate - which is what happened - results in hatefulness.

The story of the vote to leave the EU isn’t about the EU. Or immigration. Or being “left behind”. Or EU (non) concessions. It’s about values & decency (or a lack of them). A desire to hurt others (or not). It’s a horrible story about the UK. We won’t fix it by arguing over fish quotas. /13. End

2117

Yet 59% of leave votes came from the middle classes, disproportionate to their share of the UK population. /12.

130

Social class or income only gave about 55% accuracy. Such (weak) predictive power as this kind of categorisation has comes from the widely reported fact that a majority of ‘working-class’ votes supported Brexit in the referendum. /11.

140

So, the grim reality. In 2016 the British Election Study found that overwhelmingly the strongest predictor of a leave vote was support for the reintroduction of the death penalty. Such views are also linked to backing corporal punishment, and opposition to gay and women’s rights. /10.

292

Similar results were found in polling for a 2018 Oxford University study. This isn’t a picture of a UK particularly worried about immigration, or EU immigration/ “freedom of movement”. In fact, it’s the opposite. Even - if that’s the right way of characterising it - among leave voters. /9.

150

In case anyone is wondering: the poll was carried out just before the UK’s 2016 EU referendum. Hmm. Only 33% of leave voters voters’ main stated reason for their choice was for the UK to “regain control over immigration and its own borders” in Lord Ashcroft’s poll just after the referendum. /8.

160

The 2016 poll also got these results in the UK: “[you support] a common European policy on migration” (56%) “you feel you are a citizen of the EU” (54%) “immigration of people from other EU member states evokes a positive feeling [in me]” (52%) “immigrants contribute a lot to the UK” (68%) /7.

151

The question had consistently been asked, year on year, across the EU for the Eurobarometer poll. In the most important period for us, in the Brexit context, 2015 to 2019, the UK result was always between 68% and 78% (this excludes ‘don’t knows’: include them and it’s between 63% and 72%). /6.

171