Tim Bale's Blog

Ever since Boris Johnson announced he would be resigning his seat in the House of Commons, national newspapers have been full of stories about a ‘Tory civil war’. Indeed, that phrase has cropped up nearly as often in the week following his announcement as in the first six months of this year.

But is the Conservative Party really at war with itself right now – and from top to bottom? Or is what we are seeing simply a dramatic but essentially temporary reaction to its having decided, finally, to bin Boris Johnson?

Inevitably, the former prime minister’s enduring appeal to the party in the media (the columnists, editors and proprietors who are integral to the party and not just an external force acting upon it), as well as to some Tory members and MPs, is going to make getting shot of him completely very tricky.

But to suggest that their outrage at the way their hero has been treated amounts to civil war sets the bar for internecine conflict far too low.

Cast your mind back for a moment, to the dog days of 2018/19. Theresa May was desperately trying to garner support for her Brexit deal with the EU. The ERG (along with one B. Johnson Esq. of the parish of Uxbridge and South Ruislip) were equally desperately trying to destroy it – and her. Recall the confidence vote of December 2018 when some 117 Tory MPs – well over a third of the parliamentary Conservative Party – voted against their leader. Recall, too, the first ‘Meaningful Vote’ on her deal, which saw 118 of them troop into the No Lobby.

Now that’s what I call a civil war, certainly when you compare it to this last week when, by my reckoning, we’ve so far seen only around fifteen Tory MPs go into bat for Boris. Moreover, all of them are familiar to Tory-watchers – men and women who remain loyal to Johnson that some commentators have likened them to the ‘disciplined and deluded collection of stooges’ he once suggested were vital to anyone campaigning, as he once had, to become President of the Oxford Union.

The difference between now and then, however, isn’t just numerical. Three or four years ago there was a genuine battle of ideas – even ideals – going on: how hard a Brexit should the government be aiming for and what precisely did regaining sovereignty mean and entail? Boris Johnson, in his resignation statement, might have made passing mention of trade deals, tax cuts, EU directives, housing and animal welfare. But, in reality, it boiled down to him, him, him – and his failure to come to terms both with his ousting from Number Ten and his finally having to face the consequences of his actions, in spite of his supposedly self-evident claim (one all too often inflated by his diehard fans) to be the only Tory election-winner in town.

True, the really big splits in the Conservative Party have always seen fights over an issue conflated with competition for the crown – or, at the very least, competition for a place in ‘the court’ of whoever wears (or aspires to wear) it. As a result, arguments over what passes for high principle always take on an additional edge by being bound up with high (and therefore also low) politics. All the more so because Britain’s highly stratified class, educational and media systems mean that the characters involved have often been playing the same game with the same people for what can seem like forever.

Yet even if all politics inevitably involves not just ideas, interests and institutions, but also individuals. But hyperbolic loyalty to Johnson qua Johnson, seems to have trumped any commitment to ideology and to the preservation of party unity and to the electoral success that, in part depends on it – at least as far as some Tory newspapers, some Conservative MPs and some grassroots members are concerned.

The self-styled Conservative Democratic Organisation, for example, likes to claim that its main aim is to make the party more responsive to its rank and file. In reality, however, it is arguably little more than an extra-parliamentary fan-club for Boris Johnson – and one that, bankrolled and organised from the top-down rather than the bottom up, risks looking more astroturf than grassroots. Meanwhile, at Westminster itself, there are former colleagues of Johnson whose expressions of support and sympathy for him after in the immediate wake of his resignation hovered somewhere between outright idolatry and familiar conspiracy theory.

The idea, however, that either the CDO or the small bunch of MPs who publicly came out to support Johnson in the immediate aftermath of his resignation could possibly prosecute some kind of civil war is laughable.

The former’s conference down in Bournemouth in mid-May was far from an impressive affair, and it still has fewer than 3500 followers on twitter and only half as many on Facebook and just 141 on Instagram.

As for the MPs, we may, of course, see any vote on the Privileges Committee’s report flush out more faithful followers of Boris Johnson at Westminster – particularly if a rumoured plan to have the Commons ‘note’ rather than ‘accept’ it fails to come to fruition. But unless any rebellion even approaches the level Mrs May had to contend with before he managed to bring her down, then, can we – should we – really talk about a government and a party at war with itself? Sadly, however, I expect that we will: sometimes, whatever the truth of the matter, the headlines write themselves.

Originally published at https://ukandeu.ac.uk/johnsons-resignation-not-likely-to-lead-to-civil-war/

Judging by the polls and by May’s local elections, things aren’t looking too clever for the Conservatives. No surprise, then, that talk is already turning to what will happen to them should they go down to nationwide defeat in 2024, with speculation centred on who might take over from Rishi Sunak.

But the direction the party will take if it loses next year, and who it will pick to lead it in opposition, is ultimately going to depend on just how many Tory MPs hang on to their seats in the wake of such a defeat – and who they are. And that, in turn, might depend on quite how heavy that defeat turns out to be.

To try to get at all this, Liverpool University’s David Jeffery and I decided to model three scenarios – a Labour landslide; a relatively comfortable Labour overall majority; and a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party.

The biggest change that defeat would bring would be the exodus from the Commons of most of those Tory MPs representing constituencies in the north of England. A Labour landslide might leave just one or two northern Tories sitting at Westminster, while only about 10 to 15 would survive in the event of a comfortable Labour victory or a hung parliament. Even then, that would represent only a third of those Conservatives currently holding a northern seat.

If that does come to pass, then the party’s increasingly desperate attempt to hold on to the “red wall” by upping the ante on small boats and its anti-woke agenda – an effort that may well cost it seats in the southern “blue wall” – will have been in vain.

Defeat would also bring about demographic change. In all three scenarios women would probably make up a greater proportion of the parliamentary Conservative party, although the impact would be slightly greater in the event of a Labour landslide, with women then making up almost a third of all Tory MPs. And because many of the party’s ethnic minority incumbents sit in some of its safest seats, a really bad defeat would also see them make up a greater proportion of Conservatives in the Commons. The same incidentally goes for Oxbridge-educated Tory MPs and for current ministers.

Depressingly for pro-European progressives, Brexit true-believers would make up the majority in all three scenarios, and while the proportion of MPs associated with the anti-woke Common Sense Group would fall, the fall wouldn’t be that significant. As for the nimbys – backbenchers dedicated to opposing measures to encourage housebuilding – their strength would increase slightly, especially if there were a landslide.

On a brighter note, there is no evidence that a post-defeat parliamentary Conservative party would turn again to Boris Johnson. Indeed, the share of MPs who publicly backed him in last year’s second, abortive, leadership contest falls from nearly one in five now to nearer one in 10 in a Labour landslide and isn’t much more significant even in a hung parliament. In any case, unless he finds himself a safer seat fairly soon, Johnson’s relatively small majority means he might not be there to take up the reins again anyway.

That said, Penny Mordaunt would be in an even weaker position to snatch the crown, even if it’s a sword rather than a dagger she decides to wield. Using public declarations in last year’s leadership contest as a baseline, her support at Westminster would fall a very long way short of what she would need to make it into the final two. And she would lose her seat in a landslide defeat in any case.

Culture warrior Kemi Badenoch, on the other hand, sitting as she does for rock-solid Saffron Walden, would still be around, and so in with a shout. The same goes for Sunak himself. Indeed, his supporters would, in our landslide scenario, comprise about half of the parliamentary party. Whether that might tempt him to stay on rather than skedaddle straight to Santa Monica, who knows?

Whoever is in charge, though, our modelling suggests that, in defeat, the Tories – no less Brexity, as well as more southern, more nimbyish, more Oxbridge than they already are – will find it more difficult than ever to argue that they truly are a one-nation party.

Originally published at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/04/if-the-tories-lose-the-next-election-boris-johnson-wont-be-the-man-they-turn-to

The Conservative party is clearly in trouble. Admittedly, opinion polls are snapshots, not predictions, but few pundits would argue Rishi Sunak will find it easy to overturn Labour’s double digit lead in the next election, especially after the Tories’ poor showing in the recent local elections. Even more worrying for Sunak, the severity of this trouncing appears to have been down, at least in part, to the willingness of those determined to eject the Tories from office to vote tactically.

It is hardly surprising that we’re beginning to see speculation about what will happen to the Conservatives in the event of a defeat at a general election, which seems most likely to take place in the autumn of 2024. Almost inevitably that has sparked debate about who might take over from Sunak should he decide to step down as leader – talk which home secretary Suella Braverman’s barnstorming speech to the recent National Conservatism conference in London has done nothing to quell.

The previous week, business secretary Kemi Badenoch’s decision to face down Brexit hardliners over the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was discussed through the prism of her leadership ambitions. Even leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt’s impressive ability to hold up a really, really heavy ceremonial sword for a really, really long time during the King’s coronation provoked renewed chatter about her chances for the top job.

But the direction the party will take if it loses next year, and who it will pick to lead it in opposition, is actually going to depend both on how many Tory MPs hang on to their seats in the wake of such a defeat – and on who they are. And that, in turn, might depend on quite how heavy defeat turns out to be.

Three scenarios

Here we look at three scenarios in an attempt to tease out the differences we’d expect to see in the parliamentary Conservative party. We’ve not included the seats in which MPs have announced they are resigning, because we don’t yet know who would fill these vacancies.

The first scenario is a Labour landslide that would leave just 106 of the current parliamentary Conservative party in Westminster. The second is a relatively comfortable Labour win, giving Keir Starmer a majority of around 60 over all other parties, including 207 current Conservative MPs. And the third is a result which means Labour is the largest party, and able to govern with the help of, say, the Lib Dems, either in the form of a confidence-and-supply agreement with a minority government or in full-blown coalition.

The most obvious change that any kind of defeat would bring would be the exodus from the Commons of most of those Tory MPs representing constituencies in the north of England, although this would nonetheless vary considerably according to the size of Labour’s victory. Only one northern MP would be left were Labour to win a landslide and around ten would survive in the event of a comfortable Labour victory or our hung parliament scenario. Even then, however, that would represent only a third of those Conservatives currently sitting for a northern seat. And as for holding onto the much discussed red wall, forget about it.

How election defeat would shape party demographics

Defeat would also bring about some demographic change. In all three scenarios women would make up a greater proportion of the parliamentary Conservative party, although the impact would be slightly greater in the event of a Labour landslide, with women making up almost a third of all Tory MPs. And because many of the party’s ethnic minority incumbents sit in some of its safest seats, a really bad defeat would also see them make up a greater proportion of Conservatives sitting in the House of Commons. The same incidentally goes for Oxbridge-educated Tory MPs and for current ministers.

Leavers would make up the majority in all three scenarios, and while the proportion of MPs associated with the anti-woke Common Sense Group (never as great as many imagine) would fall, the fall wouldn’t be that significant. As for the NIMBYs – the backbenchers who dedicate immense energy to opposing measures to encourage house building – their strength would increase slightly, especially if there were a landslide.

Who would lead after election defeat?

There is certainly no evidence that a post-defeat parliamentary Conservative party would flock back to Boris Johnson, regardless of the metric used. Indeed, the share of MPs who publicly backed him in last year’s second, abortive, leadership contest falls from 18% now to 11% in a Labour landslide. Even in a hung parliament the figure only rises to 14%. And in any case, unless he finds himself a safer seat fairly soon, Johnson’s relatively small majority means he might not be there to take up the reins again anyway.

The post-defeat leadership contenders: who’s in with a shout?

That said, the party’s swordbearer-in-chief, Mordaunt, would be in an even weaker position: not only would her paltry 7.3% of public supporters fall to just 4.7% of the PCP, she would also lose her seat in a landslide defeat. Badenoch, on the other hand, in rock-solid Saffron Walden would still be around and is already being tipped to do better than the creditable fourth-place finish she achieved last time around. The same goes for Sunak himself. Indeed, his supporters would, in our landslide scenario, comprise nearly half of the parliamentary party. Whether that might tempt him to stay on rather than skedaddle to Santa Monica, who knows?

Whoever is in charge, our numbers suggest that, in the event of a heavy defeat, the Tories – represented as they would be by MPs who would be still more southern, more NIMBYish, more Oxbridge than they already are – could find it more difficult than ever to argue that they truly are a One Nation party.

Originally published at https://theconversation.com/annihilation-in-the-red-wall-an-exit-for-a-top-leadership-contender-and-a-parliamentary-party-stuffed-with-southerners-and-oxbridgers-how-losing-the-next-election-could-shape-the-conservatives-206652

The landlady of a pub in Essex has been expressing bemusement about the complaints of “snowflakes” after her display of golliwog dolls attracted the attention of the county’s police – only for them to be told, reportedly by the home secretary Suella Braverman, that they shouldn’t be wasting their time on such “nonsense”.

Six years ago, a not dissimilar incident unfolded in a cafe at the foot of the South Downs in Sussex, where the proprietors’ insistence on displaying a golliwog behind the counter prompted a complaint from a dismayed member of what Braverman terms the tofu-eating wokerati (namely me). On that occasion, however, it was the proprietor who called the police on the snowflake – even if, much to my disappointment, they never turned up in the end.

That incident prompted me, with the help of the polling organisation YouGov, to do a spot of survey research on public attitudes to golliwogs in England, Scotland and Wales. Was I a hopelessly politically correct outlier? Could I possibly be entirely alone in feeling more than a little uncomfortable about them?

The results were, to use a cliche, shocking but not surprising, at least to me. It turned out that some 63% of the public didn’t think it was racist to sell or display a golliwog doll – although, interestingly, slightly fewer people (53%) thought it “acceptable” to do so. Those who thought it was racist made up just 20% of the sample, and those who thought it unacceptable 27%. The rest said they didn’t know.

But that was then, this is now. The Black Lives Matter movement and the support given to it by prominent celebrities (not least some English footballers) has since loomed large in the national debate. Its advocates might reasonably expect attitudes to have shifted in their direction. And given there were pretty big differences between the attitudes of younger and older people in 2017, as well as between graduates and non-graduates, they might expect demographic change and the expansion in higher education to have helped too – if only at the margins.

YouGov was kind enough to repeat the exercise this week to see whether such a shift had indeed occurred. And lo and behold, it had – although not for everyone.

Six years ago, a majority said selling or displaying a golliwog doll wasn’t racist. Now it’s a minority. True, that minority still makes up nearly half the population, but a 15-point drop from 63% to 48% in a little over half a decade seems pretty significant. Meanwhile, the proportion of people who think it is racist has gone up from a fifth to just over a quarter (from 20% to 27%), with another 25% (up from 17% in 2017) opting for “don’t know”.

There’s been a similar “progressive” shift when it comes to whether selling or displaying golliwogs is or isn’t acceptable. The proportion of people who think it is acceptable has dropped 14 points from 53% to just 39% since 2017, with the proportion who think it isn’t rising from 27% to 34%. There’s been an identical increase (from 20% to 27%) in those saying “don’t know”.

The enduring divisions

Age continues to play a huge part in all this: a stunning 74% of those aged 65 and over continue to insist that selling or displaying a golliwog isn’t racist – a view confined to a mere 13% of 18- to 24-year-olds.

Among the older group, 64% say it’s acceptable to display one. Only 10% of the younger group agree. Education also continues to matter: twice as many graduates (42% – up 11% on 2017) as non-graduates (21%) say it’s racist.

There are, too, significant differences on both counts between those living in an ethnically diverse city like London and other parts of the country, and between middle- and working-class people, with those living in the capital and middle-class people more likely to brand the selling or display of golliwogs as racist and unacceptable.

What’s most striking, though, is the difference partisanship still plays in people’s attitudes. Only 13% of Conservative supporters and people who voted leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum think selling or displaying golliwogs is racist.

That figure (more or less depressingly, depending on your point of view) represents an insignificant change on six years ago. It is also dwarfed by the 47% of Labour supporters and 42% of remain voters who think the same about displaying these dolls.

Essentially, when it comes to golliwogs at least, the times are changing. Unless, that is, you’re old, less-educated, a Tory, a “leaver”, or a certain pub owner in Essex – in which case you’re more likely to be heard singing the same old song, and will probably continue to do so until, eventually and inevitably, your voice falls silent.

Originally published at https://theconversation.com/essex-pub-dispute-do-people-really-still-think-golliwogs-are-ok-i-conducted-a-snap-survey-203632

Ginger Rogers may be better known as a movie star than as a political strategist, but since Liz Truss trashed its already badly-tarnished brand last autumn, the Conservative Party has had little choice but to follow her advice.

“Nothing’s impossible I have found,” sang Rogers in the appositely-named Swing Time, “For when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again.”

Sure, by the time they fight the next general election the Tories will have spent 14 years in power. And sure, they’re currently miles behind Labour in the opinion polls. But they’ve got a new leader, and they’re not giving up hope just yet. So are they right to think nothing’s impossible?

The precedents, we should remember, aren’t entirely discouraging. In 1992 and 2015, most pundits were predicting defeat for John Major and David Cameron respectively. Yet both men pulled off unexpected victories.

Moreover, Labour has a massive mountain to climb if it’s to win a majority in 2024. True, it might not need the 13-point swing that some claim, but – as the polls begin to narrow as we approach the election itself – even the seven or eight point lead some analysts calculate is required could begin to look like a big ask.

Then there’s the way that Rishi Sunak is busy “scraping the barnacles off the boat”. With Jeremy Hunt’s help, he’s undone at least some of the damage done to the government’s reputation by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. High-profile industrial disputes look as if they might be on the way to being resolved, too. And with the signing of the Windsor Framework, Sunak has improved relations with the EU at the same time as inflicting a humiliating parliamentary defeat on the self-styled Spartans of the ERG, as well as on Boris Johnson and assorted has-beens on the back benches. Meanwhile, Johnson’s woeful performance in front of the Privileges Committee seems to have finally put paid to damaging leadership speculation.

As a result, Sunak’s personal ratings are on rise – not spectacularly so but enough to put him in touching distance of Keir Starmer, whose own ratings, remember, are hardly stellar. Voters’ evaluation of party leaders aren’t the be-all and end-all but still count for something.

So, of course, do their evaluations of the economy, and these are likely to improve as the government hits its laughably modest targets on growth and inflation and then doles out a few tax cuts next year. Meanwhile, Sunak’s “Stop the Boats” pledge might bring back a few proverbial Red Wall voters into the fold – particularly if broadcasters can be encouraged to follow the Tory press which still does so much (too much, some say) to set their agenda.

For all that, however, the fundamentals don’t auger well for the Tories. The Budget ensured that most of us will find ourselves paying far more tax this year, while polling suggests that voters didn’t think it did much to help them with what, for all-too-many, really is a cost of living crisis brought on by stagnant, if not falling, real wages. Throw in the fact that people know full well that the NHS is struggling badly, and you have a ready-made recipe for a Labour landslide – especially if the SNP begins to lose its hold over Scotland and the Lib Dems can pick up 15 or so Tory seats in the so-called Blue Wall.

Finally, anyone expecting the Tories tough talk on asylum to save their bacon might need to think again. For one thing, it’s unlikely to trump voters’ concerns about the economy and public services. For another, there’s a serious risk that Sunak ends up overpromising and under-delivering – something which could even tempt Nigel Farage back into frontline politics. If that happens, and he decides to contest Tory as well as Labour seats this time around, it really will be game over for the government.

Originally published at https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/tories-hold-off-labour-landslide-next-election

Rishi Sunak is on a roll. If you believe Conservative spin-doctors, the prime minister is stopping small boats crossing the channel, he’s saved a bank and its customers from going under, and he’s helped shape a relatively well-received Budget — one that should allow him to spend just before the general election he has to call sometime next year.

Above all, he’s proved that pragmatism can solve even the thorniest of legacy problems, getting his Northern Ireland Brexit fix through the Commons with only a small rebellion from a dwindling band of Brexiter malcontents and disgruntled former leaders, including Boris Johnson.

At least some of these claims are credible, and have led to a significant uptick in Sunak’s personal poll ratings, up 5 per cent on last month. But it’s far from uncomplicated good news for his party — Sunak’s successes have not so far triggered an increase in support for the Conservatives, still lagging behind Labour by about 15 to 20 per cent.

His MPs shouldn’t abandon all hope of a halo effect. If voters admire a leader while harbouring reservations about their party, an election campaign that puts said leader front and centre can potentially swing things even a beleaguered government’s way.

No surprise, then, that this is the strategy many analysts expect the current government to follow — a markedly unpopular Tory party hiding behind the skirts of a sympathetic and popular Sunak. But while it may be the best option available, recent precedents are not particularly encouraging: leaders aren’t the be-all and end-all in winning elections.

To hear his most ardent admirers, Boris Johnson almost single-handedly won the 2019 election for the Tories. Yet detailed polling during the campaign suggests that that victory owed far more to the slogan “Get Brexit Done”, plus widespread antipathy to then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, than to Johnson’s personal appeal. Indeed, Johnson was actually less popular with voters by election day than both Corbyn and Theresa May had been in 2017.

The May campaign offers the direst of warnings to Tories who think the electorate’s misgivings about the party can be assuaged by focusing on the leader. I have discovered that polling research designed to test whether calling an election that year was a smart move was far from positive. The resulting recommendation for a campaign built around the supposedly “strong and stable” May was made by strategists who had no idea what a poor communicator she was — then seized on nevertheless by insiders who did, but hoped it wouldn’t matter.

That wasn’t, of course, the only reason things went catastrophically wrong. The absence of a clear command structure, an undercooked media strategy, and an overambitious manifesto and seat-targeting operation also played their part. So, too, did the failure to persuade voters — most famously, Brenda from Bristol whose views went viral — that another general election needed to be held just two years after the last one.

None of those mistakes was repeated in 2019: Isaac Levido was firmly in charge of strategy, the Tory manifesto was deliberately dull and effectively bombproof, its media operation well organised and its targeting far more realistic. Since Levido will be running the Conservative campaign next year, too, we’re unlikely to see the dysfunction and division of 2017.

But perhaps the most important difference between 2017, 2019 and 2024 will be that, in Sunak, the Tories have a leader who might turn out to be better respected than Johnson and better able to front a presidential-style campaign than May — in an election that is due, not chosen for party advantage.

Whether, though, after more than a decade in power and with arguably precious little to show for all those changes of leader, that will be enough to save the Conservatives remains to be seen.

Originally published at https://www.ft.com/content/9bab4f4c-aea1-4f25-999f-062a625a5c1d

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.

So wrote Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto. They were talking about how what had previously been taken for granted could be swept away by capitalism. But they might as well have been talking about the way the contest for the leadership of the Scottish National Party has upended all our assumptions about that party – not least, that it was exceptionally united and had an impressively large and loyal rank-and-file membership.

That’s because, following Nicola Sturgeon’s shock resignation, the party has rapidly succumbed to the kind of bitter ideological infighting between ambitious rivals that many of us had begun to associate almost exclusively with the Conservative Party south of the border.

And not only that: in the course of the contest, the party has been forced, under pressure, to admit that it has nowhere near as many members as the rest of us had assumed – an admission that prompted the resignation of the SNP’s embattled chief-executive, Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell.

Quite why the latest figure of 72,186 members had to be dragged out of party HQ is, for the moment at least, anyone’s guess. But what is certain is that it constitutes a marked drop on the 100,000-plus that was widely quoted before this latest number was reluctantly released.

And it seems equally certain that we are seeing the end of a truly phenomenal period of grassroots growth for the Scottish nationalists which began after (and probably during) the 2014 independence referendum.

The SNP, of course, isn’t the only party in the UK to have experienced something of a membership growth spurt during the last decade. Lots more people were prompted to join the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. And, although it escaped most people’s notice, the Liberal Democrats attracted a lot of new members when they returned to opposition after five pretty brutal years in coalition with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015. Meanwhile, the Tories themselves issued just over 172,000 ballots to members in the summer 2022 leadership contest won by Liz Truss, compared with the 159,000 or so it had issued in 2019 when Boris Johnson replaced Theresa May.

Reasons for leaving

The question of why people join political parties has preoccupied academic observers since the pioneering survey research carried out by academics Patrick Seyd and Paul Whiteley in the late 1980s – a tradition built on more recently on by the Party Members Project run out of Queen Mary University of London and the University of Sussex.

What we’ve tended to pay far less attention to, however, is why members leave. This is the issue that should now be worrying the SNP, assuming that, like most political parties, it welcomes not just the legitimacy a thriving membership confers on its cause, but also the money and manpower members contribute.

That doesn’t mean that there’s been no research into this question. It is one we tried to answer in our book Footsoldiers: Political Party Membership in the 21st Century, and which we followed up more recently after Keir Starmer replaced Corbyn in 2020 – a development that caused much soul-searching last summer when the party was reported to have lost tens of thousands of members.

Although parties often fret (not without reason) about administrative failings or the cost of membership or even boring or conflictual meetings driving members away, our surveys of people who’ve quit parties show that none of these matter that much.

Instead, what prompts people to let their membership lapse or, more dramatically, to leave in high dudgeon is a sense that the party is going in the wrong direction, or adopting a particular policy or policies that they disagree with.

Our research also shows that this ideologically-motivated distancing and detachment is often bound up with dissatisfaction or plain disagreement with the leader of the party – whether that be the incumbent or their successor.

What is particularly interesting in this regard is that the SNP’s recent loss of members occurred on Nicola Sturgeon’s watch, not as a result of her resigning. This suggests that, for whatever reason, a fair few people had become disillusioned with her leadership and the direction in which the party was going.

Unfortunately for the SNP, it seems fairly likely – especially given the bitterness engendered by the contest to replace her – that whoever takes over from Sturgeon may well end up presiding over further losses, as those disappointed with the result quit too.

If that does happen, then we should also monitor what happens to membership of the Labour and Green parties north of the border, as well as of the alternative nationalist party, Alba. That’s because one thing we also know from our research is that a surprising number of people actually leave their party in order to join another one. So watch this space.

Originally published at https://theconversation.com/the-snp-lost-tens-of-thousands-of-members-under-nicola-sturgeon-heres-why-that-should-worry-her-successor-202170

Credit where credit’s due. The fact that the SNP has about 100,000 members in a nation of four million or so voters is little short of phenomenal if one compares that total with, say, the Conservatives’ 170,000 in the whole of the UK, which contains easily ten times as many voters. That didn’t, of course, stop the Tories letting that tiny and unrepresentative subsection of the wider electorate to decide who was going to replace Boris Johnson last summer. Then again, the disastrous consequences of that decision did persuade Tory MPs to deny their grassroots a second bite at the cherry a few weeks later when Rishi Sunak took over from Liz Truss without a membership ballot.

Whether the fact that the SNP, with far more members per voter, will escape the same kind of criticism when those members are invited to replace Nicola Sturgeon in a few weeks’ time, who knows? But it’s only fair that Scotland should know more about the people who are going to be making that big decision on its behalf. Parties are notoriously reluctant to release information about their members beyond how many they’ve got and, frankly, they only tend to shout about that when the numbers are going in the right direction. My colleague Paul Webb and I have been able to get round that by commissioning YouGov to carry out numerous party member surveys, the last of which we conducted shortly after the 2019 general election. This is what it told us about the SNP’s rank and file.

When it comes to demographics, the pattern will be (depressingly?) familiar to anyone’s who’s read Footsoldiers, our book about party members in the UK as a whole. The SNP grassroots split 58:42 male: female. Agewise there’s a skew towards the older generation: 71 per cent of SNP members were over 50 (40 per cent in the 50-64 bracket with 31 per cent over 65); those aged 25-49 made up 26 per cent, meaning only 3 per cent were 18-24. There’s also a skew towards the middleclass as well as the middle-aged: nearly three quarters of SNP members fell into the ABC1 rather than the C2DE bracket.

So much for what they look like; what about what they think?

Perhaps predictably, SNP members are left-wing – very left-wing.

More than nine out of ten agreed that ‘”government should redistribute income from the better-off to those who are less well-off “, that “big business takes advantage of ordinary people”, that “ordinary working people” don’t get their fair share of the nation’s wealth, and that “there’s one law for the rich and one for the poor”.

SNP members are also relatively socially liberal, though there are limits. We didn’t ask about gender recognition: however, seven out of ten, for instance, were opposed to the death penalty.

On the other hand, they were much more evenly split on the need for stiffer sentences more generally speaking.

We also asked them, incidentally, about leadership qualities: intelligence mattered; so did strength; but what mattered most was being “in touch with ordinary people”. And that means Scottish voters as well as SNP members.

Originally published at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-members-scottish-independence-future-33c9rcwdm

It was always going to be debatable whether Rishi Sunak’s decision to appoint Lee Anderson as deputy chairman of the Conservative Party was truly inspired or else utterly insane.

But it’s become all the more debatable now that the notoriously loud-mouthed member for the red wall constituency of Ashfield in Nottinghamshire has declared himself in favour of bringing back the death penalty — primarily on the grounds, apparently, that: “Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed.”

To those Tories who are particularly worried — for good reason according to the polls — about losing the support of primarily older, working class, often formerly Labour-supporting voters in the north and the midlands, this is exactly the sort of fighting talk that (along with the government’s promise to “stop the boats”) might just win them back.

Dog whistling is all well and good, they argue, but when you need a bloody great blast on the fog horn, then Lee’s your man — a real straight-shooter, and always from the hip.

Research suggests that they may be on to something. Surveys conducted after the last general election found that, when presented with the statement “For some crimes, the death penalty is the most appropriate sentence”, some 63 per cent of those who voted Tory in 2019 agreed. And the figure for those who switched from Labour to Tory at that election was, at 62 per cent, pretty much the same.

Capital punishment also finds favour with the Conservative’s grassroots members. A survey conducted in the wake of the election found that some 53 per cent of them agreed with the same statement.

That matters because it’s not enough to have folk willing to vote for you, you also need to actually get them out to vote. Rank and file members aren’t the be-all and end-all when it comes to mobilisation — mainstream and social media can help; so can paid-for ads and phone banks. But boots on the ground still count — especially when it comes to delivering leaflets, canvassing and “knocking up” voters on polling day.

There are, however, several potential downsides to Anderson’s advocacy of the death penalty.

One obvious risk is that what plays well in the red wall goes down like the proverbial lead balloon in the so-called blue wall — seats, largely in the south, which, replete as they are with more affluent and more highly educated voters, may be at risk of falling to the Lib Dems.

Just as importantly, perhaps, our research on Tory MPs suggested that only 21 per cent of them thought that the death penalty was the most appropriate sentence for some crimes, which means it’s unlikely ever to be endorsed as government, let alone Conservative, policy.

If that gets out — which, given the media’s wholly understandable interest in teasing out intra-party divisions, is highly likely — then it will look like yet another case of Tory infighting.

Worse, it may reinforce a seemingly growing feeling among some of the party’s voters that it’s being led by people who aren’t, in their eyes, “true conservatives” prepared to stand up for common sense — one that many Tory MPs worry may see them give Reform UK a go.

Rishi Sunak must have known the risks involved in appointing “30p Lee” but he may be regretting running them already.

Originally published at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/death-penalty-call-puts-lee-anderson-in-the-minority-l5rngc8pm

Brits seem less and less enamoured with Brexit, encouraging some to begin to wonder whether – whisper it softly – there might soon be majority support for rejoining the European Union. A look at the polling suggests, however, that anyone who hopes so might be jumping the gun.  Moreover, talking up the prospect may be counterproductive.  The decline in support for Brexit does seem – in part anyway – down to some 2016 Leavers changing their minds.  But ‘some’ is nowhere near enough, and their numbers are unlikely to grow if Remainers try to browbeat those who still have no regrets into reconsidering their decision.

Thanks to John Curtice, as well as to the various polls he collects in order to produce his invaluable rolling averages, many people may be aware that the number of Brits exhibiting what has come to be called ‘Bregret’ has risen over time, such that when people are asked how they’d vote now some 57% would support (re)joining the EU vs 43% who want to stay out.

This is both a composite and a headline figure – composite because, like every ‘poll of polls’ it melds together responses to different surveys asking slightly different questions; headline because it excludes the Don’t Knows/Won’t Says.  And at the moment it produces a marginally bigger gap between (re)join and stay out than most individual polls.  For instance, a survey conducted just before Christmas by Omnisis suggested join was on 45% vs 32% for stay out, with the remainder (23%) not able or willing to say one way or the other.

A more recent survey by PeoplePolling, with fieldwork completed just after the New Year, suggests the gap is similarly smaller than the headline figure, albeit with even more respondents (just over a quarter, in fact) declaring themselves unwilling or unable to voice an opinion.

But it also does something more interesting, asking one half of the sample the basic join or stay out question but asking the question to the other half only after reminding them that joining would mean going back into the single market, applying EU law, accepting freedom of movement, and paying into the EU Budget.  The impact isn’t huge but it is instructive: Don’t Know/Won’t Say hardly changes but join drops from 42 to 38% while stay out rises from 33 to 35%.

Delving into the poll’s crossbreaks, we find what we’d expect when we compare, on the one hand, those who voted Leave in 2016 and (separately) those who voted Conservative in 2019 with those who voted Remain and (separately) voted Labour. The former favour staying out over joining by roughly 70:10, the latter favour joining to staying out by the same margin.  We’re also reminded of quite how much age makes a difference.  Up until age 49, getting on for half of respondents are joiners with only around a fifth saying they’d stay out.  Those aged 50-64, however, favour staying out by 40 to 31%, and those aged 65-plus favour doing so by 59 to 26% – a huge margin made all the greater by the fact that far more retirees seem willing and able to state a preference one way or the other.

Now, if you’re pro-EU, there is some (albeit slightly morbid!) encouragement to be had here.  Recent research suggests that, if there has been a decline in support for Brexit (and there does seem to have been) around a third of that decline is due to ‘voter replacement’ – a polite way of talking about the fact that a fair few old, Brexity voters have shuffled off this mortal coil to be replaced by younger people who are overwhelmingly opposed to Brexit.  If these people hold on to that view as they get older, then a ‘cohort effect’ may eventually produce a majority for rejoining.

The other reason support for Brexit seems to have declined has to do with a growing feeling among Leavers that it’s been bad for the economy, not least in the wake of Liz Truss’s and Kwasi Kwarteng’s whacky few weeks in charge.  This, of course, may not offer so much encouragement to rejoiners: after all, an economic recovery could theoretically see some of those disenchanted Leavers swing back to thinking the country was right to quit the EU in 2016 and that they would vote to stay out today.

The take-home message from the polling right now, then, is that, while Brexiteers aren’t exactly winning the battle for hearts and minds, there doesn’t seem to be much prospect of a sure-fire majority for rejoin emerging anytime soon.

As to why that’s the case, we can only guess.  Most likely it’s that many Brits just don’t think they could face the chaos, even the trauma, that would inevitably accompany an attempt to reopen the question of the UK’s membership, and anyway it’s only been two years since we left so perhaps we should give it more time?  Also, the SNP aside, opposition parties – principally Labour and the Lib Dems – haven’t provided voters with much encouragement to think rejoining is a serious option.

That’s mainly because they’re convinced (rightly) that they need to win back Leave voters in order to have any chance of victory at the next election.  But it’s also because they’ve finally twigged that telling people they’ve made a stupid mistake isn’t, psychologically, the best way of convincing them to undo it.  Better instead to let them come to that conclusion themselves – perhaps through the evidence of their own eyes and experience, perhaps as the analysis provided by those much-maligned experts begins to filter down, or perhaps as (unlikely as it may seem) ‘EUstalgia’ becomes a thing.

Rejoiners, then, would be well advised to let (human) nature to take its course and to heed the old proverb – ‘least said, soonest mended.’ Whether, however, the EU would really want the UK back in the fold if they succeed in putting together a majority to apply for entry who knows?  Right now, I rather doubt it.

Originally published at https://encompass-europe.com/comment/least-said-soonest-mended-public-support-in-brexit-britain-for-re-joining-the-eu