Is British Politics shifting to the Right?
In June 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union, shocking millions and dividing households across the UK into Leavers and Remainers (Grynberg, et al., 2020). Was this a sign that the UK was moving to the political right? The Vote Leave campaign used topics such as immigration and being in charge of the borders (VoteLeave , 2016), which have been used by many on the right over decades, but probably best remembered in the 20th century by Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech (Whipple, 2009). If immigration is a move to the right is there a left leaning issue such as climate change that can be analysed?
Figure 1 (Ipsos, 2023)
Figure 1 highlights how over time concern on climate change was increasing, however in recent years the numbers have begun to drop. Even though it may be early to use this graph for future predictions there has been a movement in the graph since 2021. Radical action by those such as Just Stop Oil (Just Stop Oil, 2024) is seen as unacceptable by the right of politics, as portrayed by media such as The Daily Telegraph. In a post Covid-19 world, with war again on the European continent and high inflation (Office for National Statistics , 2024), climate change is showing signs of being an issue less important, but does that make the British public more right wing?
A YouGov study found that the Conservative party is now seen as right wing as UKIP.
Figure 2 (Smith, 2024)
In figure 2 the Conservative party line has slowly creeped more and more towards the UKIP party line. Therefore, it can be predicted that Conservative party ideologies have shifted right as well and due to it being the party in power for the past 9 years (not including coalition in 2010) it could be theorized that the UK Parliament has shifted right too. This was evidenced by the decision by several more moderate Conservative MPs to stand down or not be selected for the General Election in 2019 (Belam, et al., 2019). The Conservative victory in December 2019 with the slogan “Get Brexit Done”, followed by “Stop the Boats” in 2023 (GOV.UK, 2023) brought the immigration rhetoric into focus.
However, these policy changes are not necessarily evidence of a political change. One way to look at how UK political views are changing is whether someone is seen as materialist or post-materialist. Materialists those who care more about issues such as maintaining order and keeping a balance economy in a country, whereas post-materialist value more self-expression and quality of life (Inglehart, 1977). When examining these views it can be looked at from a generational perspective as recent studies have shown that although the younger generation may be more liberal, they are not necessarily the more post-materialist. Studies have shown (Kafka & Kostis, 2021) a post-materialist viewpoint will have a negative effect on economic growth, and these values emerged in countries such as the UK from 1999 to 2019. However, Covid-19 was a shock to the UK economy (Office for National Statistics , 2021) and with the price of energy increasing after the Russian invasion of Ukraine the government has struggled to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. As costs go up for there is a drift back to a more materialistic viewpoint, which is seen as more traditional and to the right of politics.
Figure 3 (BBC News, 2024)
Strong support for Labour may suggest that the country is not moving to the right, but the steady increase in support for Reform may indicate a section of strong right-wing views.
There has been a trend for the Tory Party to move towards the right since the 2016 referendum, and their success in 2019 may indicate that the country supported such views. The pressures of the economy after the pandemic have led to more materialist views as families have struggled with the cost of living. The general election will be the first significant test nationally since the pandemic and it will be the party manifestos which may show just how the country has changed. Labour policies may be less left wing to move towards the centre to win votes from more traditional voters who are unwilling to continue to support the Tories. Some Tory voters (based on the polling) will look to Reform with their strong views on immigration, even if they are unsuccessful due to the first past the post system. Turnout though may prove to be the biggest barometer. Tory voters have stayed at home during the recent by-elections giving Labour surprising victories (Labour Party , 2024). If this is repeated in the general election the understanding of how the political mood of the country has changed may still be unclear.
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This is a great blog that summarises the post-materialist/materialist viewpoints. This blog is a great explainer for these concepts, and I found it very interesting in discussing the role between post-materialist/materialist values vis-a-vis economic growth. The concept that the general ideology of the public is rather fluid, and changes based on economic conditions is well-put and very thought-provoking. It may have been helpful to add in, briefly, other factors at play that feed into the ‘public ideology’. Social movements can certainly alter the public mood, such as populism that has taken over much of the West is another important factor in moving Britain to the right – e.g. Brexit, growth of Reform, GB News. Another example might include the Occupy movement after the Great Recession. These things can also impact movement on the right-left spectrum. Overall, really interesting read.
This blog post thoroughly examines multiple factors contributing to the perceived shift to the right in British politics considering policy changes, party ideologies, public opinion trends on issues such as climate change and immigration as well as generational perspectives. These points are effectively proven with the use of data from sources such as YouGov, Ipsos and academic sources enhancing the credibility of the analysis. To strengthen the analysis however, the post could have engaged more directly with opposing views to the argument being made by addressing potential counterarguments a more nuanced understanding of the arguments at hand could have been made. Overall this blog is very well-written and easy to follow with insightful analysis backed up by data and evidence.
The author of this blog post has effectively begun their post by marking the beginning of the UK’s shift to the political right as beginning with the vote by the country to leave the European Union. Furthermore, the author of this blog continues by employing a graph to illustrate that members of the public have begun to become less concerned with the impending effects climate change will have in the UK. The author of the blog post effectively prescribes this lessening concern as resulting from the actions of climate action groups such as Just Stop Oil as being viewed as intolerable by members of the political right, a view which is further employed by right-wing media outlets such as the Daily Mail. Furthermore, I found it to be effective of the author to highlight the argument and statistic that the Conservative Party has now become more right-wing than UKIP, the blueprint of the Brexit campaign. The argument further brought on by the author is that due to the cost-of-living crisis crippling both British poltics and the UK’s economy, political parties are almost forced to creep further towards the political right in order to gain votes.