Brexit and tradition wars divide Labour and Tory voters extra, Sir John Curtice says | EUROtoday

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Brexit and tradition warfare points are driving a firmer wedge between Labour and Tory voters, evaluation by main pollster Professor John Curtice has discovered.

Immediately after the Brexit referendum, Leave voters have been greater than twice as doubtless than Remain voters to say they have been Conservative. But this has now grown to 3 instances as doubtless, in line with a brand new report from the National Centre of Social Research.

Opinions on the rights of trans individuals are additionally a rising indicator of voting choice. Participants of the British Social Attitudes survey have been requested whether or not they agree or disagree with the assertion: “A person who is transgender should be able to have the sex recorded on their birth certificate changed if they want”.

People’s responses differed little by the get together they supported when the query was first requested in 2016. However, a big political hole has now emerged between those that disagree that transgender folks ought to have the ability to change their delivery certificates and people who don’t.

Those who disagree with the assertion are 25 share factors extra doubtless than those that comply with say they’re a Conservative, Reform or UKIP voter.

Professor John Curtice, pollster and senior analysis fellow on the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), mentioned: “It is often suggested that now that Brexit no longer dominates the political agenda, that the battle for votes has reverted to being simply a contest between left and right.

“However, the terrain in which the parties are fighting is now a two-dimensional space in which issues of culture and identity, including Brexit, are as important as the divide between left and right.”

There is now additionally a stronger relationship between pleasure for Britain and political get together choice, NatCen discovered.

The Labour get together and the Green get together are extra standard amongst individuals who say they’ve little or no pleasure of their nation. Whereas the Tories are standard amongst people who find themselves extra patriotic.

Support for the Conservatives or a Eurosceptic get together can be stronger amongst those that assume that equal alternatives for lesbian, homosexual and bisexual folks have gone too far.

Researchers at NatCen additionally discovered that the UK inhabitants grew to become extra liberal in perspective in the direction of immigration between 2014 and 2021, however this development has been partially reversed within the final three years.

Large adjustments have been launched to the immigration system at begin of 2021 on the finish of the Brexit transition interval. The new system launched a points-based system for visas, and the post-Brexit choice standards was much less strict than these utilized to non-EU labour migration earlier than Brexit.

The outcome has been a surge in web migration fuelled by folks, primarily from India, Nigeria and China, coming to the UK for work or research.

The proportion of people that assume that migrants are good for the economic system is now dropping, from 51 per cent in 2021 to 40 per cent in 2024.

Similarly in 2021, 48 per cent of individuals mentioned that migrants enriched Britain’s cultural life. This has now dropped to 43 per cent.

Gillian Prior, interim chief government on the NatCen, mentioned that public attitudes towards immigration have change into “significantly more positive since 2014”. But she added: “At the same time, it is an issue on which we have become more divided both socially and politically, and attitudes have shifted somewhat in the opposition direction more recently. This helps to explain why the subject has become one of the central issues in the current general election campaign.”