Alan Wager is a Research Associate at UK in a Changing Europe
It was clear at the start of the summer that the Conservative Party had a strategic decision to make. The electoral coalition constructed in December 2019 was in peril. Boris Johnson, the architect of that coalition, had a blueprint: absent Brexit and with Jeremy Corbyn a distant memory, being seen to be serious about tackling regional inequality would keep the party’s new voters in the fold. With the architect getting the sack, what would become of these carefully laid plans?
In the end, this promise to ‘level up the UK’ survived the leadership contest over the summer, though neither candidate embraced the concept quite as convincingly as the man who coined it. Now capital spending projects and a commitment to ‘levelling up’ will have to survive some tough decisions going forward.
At the UK in a Changing Europe, working with YouGov, we conducted a 20,000-person poll across England – out today – that is one of the largest explorations to date of attitudes to regional inequality, civic pride and what people want to see changed about their local areas. Within it are some salutary lessons for the party as it weighs up its options.
One simple question we asked was whether respondents felt that the north of England gets its fair share of government spending.
The results lay bare the problem: some 90 per cent of Conservative voters in the north of England feel their region does not get its fair share of spending — broadly equivalent to the 93 per cent of Labour voters in the north. Yet fewer than half of 2019 Conservative voters in the south of England (46 per cent) accept the premise that the north is unfairly treated. The Labour Party simply does not have the same regional chasm in its electoral coalition, with 78 per cent of Labour’s voters in the south believing the north has not had its fair share of spending.
In this, the party is in some senses a victim of its own success. Boris Johnson was able to expand the Conservative Party’s electoral map, particularly in less affluent and often post-industrial sections of the north of England. At the same time, he was able to retain areas of the south that have long been seen as the Conservative Party’s heartlands. For many of these voters, regional redistribution was either less relevant or, worse, counter to their view of what the government should do.
In contrast, Labour’s coalition in 2019 is less divided on the value of a new settlement for the north of England in part just because there were just fewer Labour voters in December 2019. If Starmer is successful in winning some areas in the ‘Blue Wall’ which Labour – think Wycombe, Milton Keynes, or Reading – then it is likely to be on the back of votes from people who are not quite as convinced as the Labour Party is that the UK’s electoral geography needs a fundamental reset.
Our study found two things, partly contradictory and both simultaneously true. The Conservative Party’s message on levelling up appears to have cut through with the public, who are significantly more likely to say that inequality between regions is more important than inequality between people.
Yet the party has still not reversed its reputation as one that represents the interest of Buckingham rather than Blackpool. Our polling found the Conservatives were seen as the party that cares more about the South East by the people that live in that region. In contrast, in Yorkshire, the North West and the North East – the areas of England where the message on levelling up was felt to be most effective – the Labour Party was on average 10 per cent more likely to be thought to care about people’s local community than the Conservatives. Labour are still seen as the default party for many people in these places.
Winning in December 2019 despite this was a real electoral feat. The altogether more ambiguous position of ‘Trussonomics’ on levelling up to date is another reason, among many, why the fragile coalition of December 2019 looks in some peril. If capital spending in the north does not survive what is to come, the risk is that party is in danger of being the architect of its own downfall.
Alan Wager is a Research Associate at UK in a Changing Europe
It was clear at the start of the summer that the Conservative Party had a strategic decision to make. The electoral coalition constructed in December 2019 was in peril. Boris Johnson, the architect of that coalition, had a blueprint: absent Brexit and with Jeremy Corbyn a distant memory, being seen to be serious about tackling regional inequality would keep the party’s new voters in the fold. With the architect getting the sack, what would become of these carefully laid plans?
In the end, this promise to ‘level up the UK’ survived the leadership contest over the summer, though neither candidate embraced the concept quite as convincingly as the man who coined it. Now capital spending projects and a commitment to ‘levelling up’ will have to survive some tough decisions going forward.
At the UK in a Changing Europe, working with YouGov, we conducted a 20,000-person poll across England – out today – that is one of the largest explorations to date of attitudes to regional inequality, civic pride and what people want to see changed about their local areas. Within it are some salutary lessons for the party as it weighs up its options.
One simple question we asked was whether respondents felt that the north of England gets its fair share of government spending.
The results lay bare the problem: some 90 per cent of Conservative voters in the north of England feel their region does not get its fair share of spending — broadly equivalent to the 93 per cent of Labour voters in the north. Yet fewer than half of 2019 Conservative voters in the south of England (46 per cent) accept the premise that the north is unfairly treated. The Labour Party simply does not have the same regional chasm in its electoral coalition, with 78 per cent of Labour’s voters in the south believing the north has not had its fair share of spending.
In this, the party is in some senses a victim of its own success. Boris Johnson was able to expand the Conservative Party’s electoral map, particularly in less affluent and often post-industrial sections of the north of England. At the same time, he was able to retain areas of the south that have long been seen as the Conservative Party’s heartlands. For many of these voters, regional redistribution was either less relevant or, worse, counter to their view of what the government should do.
In contrast, Labour’s coalition in 2019 is less divided on the value of a new settlement for the north of England in part just because there were just fewer Labour voters in December 2019. If Starmer is successful in winning some areas in the ‘Blue Wall’ which Labour – think Wycombe, Milton Keynes, or Reading – then it is likely to be on the back of votes from people who are not quite as convinced as the Labour Party is that the UK’s electoral geography needs a fundamental reset.
Our study found two things, partly contradictory and both simultaneously true. The Conservative Party’s message on levelling up appears to have cut through with the public, who are significantly more likely to say that inequality between regions is more important than inequality between people.
Yet the party has still not reversed its reputation as one that represents the interest of Buckingham rather than Blackpool. Our polling found the Conservatives were seen as the party that cares more about the South East by the people that live in that region. In contrast, in Yorkshire, the North West and the North East – the areas of England where the message on levelling up was felt to be most effective – the Labour Party was on average 10 per cent more likely to be thought to care about people’s local community than the Conservatives. Labour are still seen as the default party for many people in these places.
Winning in December 2019 despite this was a real electoral feat. The altogether more ambiguous position of ‘Trussonomics’ on levelling up to date is another reason, among many, why the fragile coalition of December 2019 looks in some peril. If capital spending in the north does not survive what is to come, the risk is that party is in danger of being the architect of its own downfall.