The idea that the entire UK is engaged in, even consumed by, some kind of “culture war” is overblown. But there is no doubt that topics like Europe, immigration net zero, and the nation’s history (particularly with regard to its colonial past) have loomed larger recently than was the case when elections were dominated by debates about the economy, tax and spend, and public services.  And Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, and his newest recruits Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, are bound to want to keep it that way.

Nor can there be any doubt that opinion on such questions is often highly polarised, with parties traditionally seen as on the left and centre-left tending towards social liberalism, while those on the right tend toward what some label “authoritarian” or at least socially conservative world views. Partly as a result, electoral competition in Britain increasingly revolves not just around five parties but around two blocs – one comprising the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems, the other Reform UK and the Conservatives.

This two bloc polarisation has rightly attracted plenty of attention when it comes to voters. But it is even more striking when we focus on the views and values of those who belong to the country’s political parties across both “cultural” and economic issues – something that we, the Party Members Project run out of Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University, did in the aftermath of the 2024 general election campaign.

Brexit and the EU

Predictably enough, on Europe, hardly any members of the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems voted Leave, while eight or nine out of ten voted Remain (see Figure 1). The same proportion of Reform members voted for Brexit and, although support for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU among Conservative members was significantly lower, it nevertheless represented a healthy majority.

Figure 1 How members (and the public) voted in the 2016 Referendum

Polarization on immigration

As for immigration (see Figure 2), again there are few surprises.  Indeed, if anything what we see is confirmation that Britain’s party members are much like British voters in the sense that they seem to be resolving themselves into a right-wing bloc comprised of Reform UK and the Tories, on the one hand, and a left-wing (or at least “progressive”) bloc, on the other. Fewer than a fifth of Green members believe immigration has been too high in the last decade – and the same goes for around a third of Labour and Lib Dem members. Among people who’ve joined the Conservatives and Reform, however, negative attitudes toward immigration are near-universal and, in both cases, even more negative than those displayed by those who vote for those parties.

Figure 2: Views on immigration

Contested history

Attitudes to Britain’s supposedly glorious or else shameful past also feature heavily in the so-called culture wars, so we asked whether party members (and voters) felt proud of their country’s history (see Figure 3). Again, the responses were highly polarised, although on this occasion Labour members were rather more positive (perhaps because their party has played a fairly large part in creating twenty-first century Britain) than their Lib Dem and (especially) their Green counterparts.  Even so, the contrast with those who belong to or simply vote for the Conservatives and Reform UK, virtually all of whom express their pride in the nation’s past, is glaring.

Figure 3: Proud of this country’s history?

Net Zero

Attitudes among party members toward the government cutting carbon emissions in order to reach net zero are similarly polarised (see Figure 4) – but with one interesting qualification. This is an issue that the Conservatives under Kemi Badenoch have now joined Reform UK in trying to politicise; however, our research suggests she might not take each and every Tory member with her, presumably because many of them were convinced by her predecessors (most obviously Theresa May and Boris Johnson) that the climate emergency was real and necessitated urgent action. As expected, though, Reform members (nine out of ten of whom oppose the policy) are the polar opposite of members of the Greens, Labour, and the Lib Dems, virtually all of whom support it. As such, they would appear to be out of line with the public, over two-thirds of whom do too.

Figure 4: Views on reducing emissions to get to net zero

Tax and spend, left and right

Our focus on cultural issues shouldn’t lead us to ignore so-called left-right issues completely, of course – something we tapped into in a couple of ways.

First, we asked members (and voters) about tax and spend (see Figure 5) – and although Tory members were slightly more inclined than their Reform counterparts to think the current balance was about right (possibly because their party had just been in charge of the nation’s finances), there was still are marked contrast between the members of both those parties and those belonging to parties in the so-called progressive bloc. The latter were – surprise, surprise – much keener to see more spending than tax cuts.

Figure 5: Views on tax and spend

Second, we asked people to define themselves on a left-right scale (Figure 6) – and, as expected, members were far from reluctant to nail their ideological colours to the mast. And, interestingly, although there were some differences between parties’ members and their voters, generally there wasn’t that big a mismatch.

Figure 6: Left-Right self-placement

Two bloc polarisation

While so-called cultural concerns, then, often seem to be to the fore in day-to-day political debate these days, particularly when that debate is conducted on social media, they don’t exist in isolation. Indeed, they may well be folded (and feed) into people’s conception of what being left or right wing actually entails. Just as importantly, the boundaries between those two stances seem to be hardening. 

Floating voters haven’t completely disappeared, of course; however, they now tend to float within rather than between blocs. When it comes to Party members, our previous research has revealed a surprising amount of movement between Parties on their part; but our latest findings suggest that two-bloc polarisation means their options for switching are severely limited too. These days, to misquote Rudyard Kipling, left is left and right is right, and never the twain shall meet.

Originally published at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-two-bloc-polarisation-of-britains-voters-and-party-members/