Class Voting: The Ghost of Elections Past?
Introduction
In the 1960’s, political scientist Peter Pulzer stated that “class is the basis of British party politics; all else is embellishment and detail.” During this time, it was much more common for those in middle-class jobs to vote Conservative and on the other hand, those in more working-class jobs were more likely to vote Labour. But it is said now that the job that someone does is not likely to have much of an effect on how they cast their vote (Curtice, J. 2019.) But why is this? This blog post will discuss the fall in the relationship between social class and voting, and whether this relationship between voting and class is disappearing or simply just changing.
“New Labour” and the fall of working-class participation
The book “The New Politics of Class” written by Evans and Tilley is a piece of literature which presents a challenging argument regarding the change in class politics over the last half century. Evans and Tilley observe that voting in relation to social class In Britain has greatly declined since the 1960’s when the first British Election Study was conducted. Evans and Tilley use a variety of data to make a number of interesting findings including evidence of a decline in class voting. But why did this change emerge?
Evans and Tilley found that the change surrounding class voting came in the 1990’s. This was a time that saw a decline in the Political participation of the Working class which coincided with the decision by the Labour party to enhance its appeal to the growing middle class emerging from post-industrial Britain through a rebranding to the “New Labour”. The New Labour failed to provide attractive policy choices for working class voters. (Clarke, H.D. 2017.) The Labour Party’s strategy to distance itself from former class issues led some of their working-class voters to vote elsewhere, for parties such as UKIP. More notably however, a large number of the working class did not turn out to vote. It is noted in “The New Politics of Class” that it is difficult to see how the disengagement of the working class can be reversed. (University of Oxford. 2017)
By 2019, The Conservative Party held a lead of 21 percentage points among working class voters. The historic relationship between being working-class and voting Labour had been reversed. This raises questions of whether the relationship between social class and voting, is disappearing or simply shifting.
Modern Day Class Cleavages
It can be seen above that although class voting may not look how it did in the 1960’s, there is still a clear correlation between social classes and where they cast their votes. So what may these class cleavages look like in today’s society.
Age is one factor that may be seen to contribution of the shift in how class may present itself. For example, older voters are much more likely to vote conservative. This may be as older people may have more financial stability in the form of home ownership and pensions. Older voters therefore may have more of an interest in preserving their economically hegemonic position.
However, younger voters may be more financially insecure than their older counterparts. A younger person working in the city may have things such as private rent, bills, groceries and things such as leisure and travel costs to worry about. Overall living costs are high making it difficult for the younger generation to be able to save money and further purchase assets such as a house. Therefore, younger voters may be more financially insecure which may fuel their high voting rate for Labour.
This difference therefore may demonstrate a redefined version of class which Is based off of asset wealth, living cost and then social grade. (Hurwood,K. 2021)
Conclusion
Overall, it is clear to see the importance that class has had in British Politics for countless years, but many question whether it has the same importance now as it once did historically.
Although class voting dos not look the same as it did in past decades. With a strong class vote being obvious. it is clear to see that class in engraved in how people vote even if it looks different in today’s society with events such as the shift of working class voting after the emergence of the New Labour party, it can be seen that class is not disappearing simply changing as society changes, with age groups tending to vote as one a new definition of class can be seen emerging.
Bibliography.
Clarke, H.D. (2017). What do Willie Sutton and Tony Blair Have in Common? A Response to The New Politics of Class by Geoffrey Evans and James Tilley. The Political Quarterly, 88(4), pp.693–697. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923x.12436.
Hurwood,K. (2021). The 2019 UK General Election and the Modern Class Cleavage. [online] LSE Undergraduate Political Review. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseupr/2021/04/29/the-2019-uk-general-election-and-the-modern-class-cleavage/.
Ox.ac.uk. (2017). ‘The death of working class political participation is due to parties, not voters’ | University of Oxford. [online] Available at: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-02-16-%E2%80%98-death-working-class-political-participation-due-parties-not-voters%E2%80%99.
Sir John Curtice (2019). General election 2019: Do people still vote according to class? BBC News. [online] 26 Nov. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50543903.
This blog was a good analysis of class dealignment and the shift in voting behaviour of the working class towards more right wing parties such as the Conservatives and UKIP away from Labour who were always traditionally the party of the working class. The blog uses solid literary sources to present how it is not just the working class voters who have abandoned the Labour party but also the Labour party particularly under Blair abandoning their previous principles used to garner the working class vote. The idea of age becoming the main social cleavage is extremely interesting and well supported by the author who suggests factors such as difficulties of getting onto the property ladder as to why many young voters differ in their beliefs to those who are more elderly. I do think, however, that an angle of class and partisan dealignment which could have been mentioned and perhaps built upon is the effects that the decline in secondary industry and the rise of tertiary industry and the service sector has had on. The rise of these industries completely changed the traditional british class structure and hence had a large impact on class voting.
This blog post provides a thoughtful analysis of the role in class in modern British politics. The author also discusses the role of age in voting. One idea that could enhance the understanding of the role of age in politics is that of materialism vs post-materialism. The level of post-materialist beliefs within each generation can contribute to how they vote by determining what issues are most important to them. Given that generations share formative experiences such as war and economic recession, they will share similar levels of post-materialist vs materialist values. This trend offers an explanation for why voting trends change across generations and potentially why younger people tend to vote more liberally than older generations.
This blog post is very well structured and follows a clear narrative in how class politics shifted and distanced itself from how one would cast their vote in an election. This blog post expertly explained the shift away from the Labour Party being synonymous with the working class, to becoming disenfranchised with “New Labour”, which resulted in the Conservative Party gaining 21 percentage points among the working class. This blog post also highlights modern day class cleavages very well, explaining there is still a correlation between the working class and the Labour Party, using younger voters as an example to highlight this. To add to this blog post, I would view the devolved power’s class statistics in local elections to determine if this is a broad UK diminishment of class voting, or if it is intrinsic to the Westminster government.