Challenging the Narrative of the Left Behind Brexiter

• In Event: New Research on the Brexit Vote

Abstract

The result of the UK’s referendum on the EU has sparked much interest on the socio-economic characteristics of Brexiters and their malaise vis-à-vis globalisation. In this article we challenge the popularised view of the Leave voter as society’s outsider and find that individuals from an intermediate class, whose malaise is due to a declining financial position, represent an important segment of the Brexit vote. We use individual-level data from a post-Brexit survey with post-stratification weights based on the British Election Study. Our analysis tests three predictive models. First, although our analysis confirms the negative association between education and Leave vote, it finds that voting Leave is more associated with intermediate educational levels than with low or absent education, in particular in the presence of a perceived declining economic position. Secondly, we find that Brexiters hold distinct psycho-social features of malaise due to declining economic conditions, rather than anxiety or anger. Thirdly, our exploratory model finds voting Leave associated with self-identification with middle class, rather than with working class. We also find that intermediate levels of income were not more likely to vote for remain than low income groups. Overall our analysis of the Brexit vote underlines the importance of considering the political behaviour of the declining middle.

Authors

• Lorenza Antonucci

• Laszlo Horvath

• André Krouwel, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam