Devoting specific attention to data on the roles of poverty, place and individual characteristics driving the leave vote, this report shows how Britain was divided along economic, educational and social lines.

In the aftermath of the vote few studies have considered both individual and area-level drivers of the vote to leave the EU. This report reviews existing research, examines new data and considers implications for the wider debate.

Key findings:

The poorest households, with incomes of less than £20,000 per year, were much more likely to support leaving the EU than the wealthiest households, as were the unemployed, people in low-skilled and manual occupations, people who feel that their financial situation has worsened, and those with no qualifications.

Groups vulnerable to poverty were more likely to support Brexit. Age, income and education matter, though it is educational inequality that was the strongest driver. Other things being equal, support for leave was 30 percentage points higher among those with GCSE qualifications or below than it was for people with a degree. In contrast, support for leave was just 10 points higher among those on less than £20,000 per year than it was among those with incomes of more than £60,000 per year, and 20 points higher among those aged 65 than those aged 25.

Support for Brexit varied not only between individuals but also between areas. People with all levels of qualifications were more likely to vote leave in low-skill areas compared with high-skill areas. However, this effect was stronger for the more highly qualified. In low-skilled communities the difference in support for leave between graduates and those with GCSEs was 20 points. In high-skilled communities it was over 40 points. In low-skill areas the proportion of A-level holders voting leave was closer to that of people with low-skills. In high-skill areas their vote was much more similar to graduates.

Groups in Britain who have been ‘left behind’ by rapid economic change and feel cut adrift from the mainstream consensus were the most likely to support Brexit. These voters face a ‘double whammy’. While their lack of qualifications put them at a significant disadvantage in the modern economy, they are also being further marginalised in society by the lack of opportunities that faced in their low-skilled communities. This will make it extremely difficult for the left behind to adapt and prosper in future.

Introduction

The 2016 vote to leave the EU marked a watershed moment in the history of the United Kingdom. When all votes had been counted 52% of those who voted had opted to leave the EU, a figure that increased to almost 54% in England. The figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland varied, at 38, 52.5 and 44%, respectively. Across 393 local authorities, support for leave surpassed 70% in eight authorities, 60% in 102 and 50% in 263. In England the share of the vote for leaving ranged from nearly 76% in Boston, Lincolnshire to 21% in Lambeth, London.

Like Boston, many local authorities that recorded some of the strongest support for Brexit are struggling areas where average incomes, education and skill levels are low and there are few opportunities to get ahead. Authorities that recorded some of the highest levels of support for Brexit include the working-class communities of Castle Point, Great Yarmouth, Mansfield, Ashfield, Stoke-on-Trent, and Doncaster. In such communities the types of opportunities and life experiences contrast sharply with those in areas that are filled with more affluent, highly-educated, and diverse populations, which gave some of the strongest support to remaining in the EU, such as Islington, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford and Richmond upon Thames.

The geography of the vote has sparked a debate about a divided Britain in which many have traced the vote for Brexit to economically disadvantaged and low skilled ‘left behind’ communities that amid a post-industrial and increasingly global economy are struggling to keep pace with high skilled areas. But to what extent is this interpretation supported by data? What motivated the vote to leave the EU and what role did poverty and place play in these decisions?

Our aims are two-fold. First, building on work by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) we examine the relationship between poverty and the vote for Brexit. One of the most contested issues in the referendum campaign was the claimed economic impact of Brexit. This debate is linked closely to poverty, since the question of the short- and long-term effects of Brexit on the economy – including on exchange rates, growth, investment and employment – all have direct and indirect effects on the poorest people and places, as also noted by JRF.

Between 2011 and 2014, nearly one-third of the UK population experienced relative income poverty at least once. Groups most vulnerable to poverty are older people, people who left school without any formal education, women, and people in single-person households. The chances of entering poverty also vary across different areas. Whereas some areas are thriving, others are in decline. A recent report by JRF shows that this decline consists of numerous factors such as population loss, those with higher skills moving out, economic restructuring and de-industrialisation, shrinking labour markets, unemployment, low education and skills, poor health, deprivation and poverty, physical blight and declining tax bases. But were poverty and place central drivers of the vote to leave the EU? To explore this question, we have undertaken new research to offer hitherto unprecedented insight into the dynamics of the vote.

Second, we present findings from new research on individual voters who readily identified themselves as supporters of Brexit. Until now, much of the research on the referendum has focused on the area or ‘aggregate’ level, exploring for instance the relationship between the characteristics of communities and their levels of support for leaving or remaining in the EU. But looking only at the area level masks what is happening at the individual level. For example, knowing that lots of Eurosceptic voters live in Clacton is helpful but it does not really tell us much about why those individuals in Clacton actually decided to vote for Brexit. In this report we push the debate forward by considering both the area and individual-level drivers of support for Brexit as well as how these interact. Drawing on data from the British Election Study (BES), we put the backgrounds, attitudes and values of leave voters under the microscope, painting a detailed picture of what motivated their decision at the referendum. This allows us to contribute to the national debate, exploring what the findings reveal about issues that need addressing in relation to poverty, skills and opportunity, and in different parts of the country.

Voting to leave the EU: existing research

The relationship between poverty, education and age, and level of support for Brexit

A first step to examining the role of poverty in the referendum vote is to examine existing work on the relationship between the characteristics of areas and their level of support for Brexit (or what academics call the ‘aggregate level’). Broadly speaking, past research traces support for Brexit to areas with older populations and lower than average levels of education. These areas are more likely than others to experience deprivation and, in recent years, witnessed significant demographic change as a result of the inward migration of EU nationals.

In the immediate aftermath of the referendum our earlier work (Goodwin and Heath, forthcoming, see Reference notes below) examined data from 380 of the 382 local authorities across the UK, linking this to information from the 2011 census. We found that support for Brexit was strongest in areas where a large percentage of the population did not have any qualifications and were ill-equipped to thrive amid a post-industrial and increasingly competitive economy that favours those with skills and is operating in the broader context of globalisation. For instance, 15 of the 20 ‘least educated’ areas voted to leave while all of the 20 ‘most highly educated’ areas voted to remain. Support for Brexit was also stronger than average in areas with a larger number of pensioners. Of the 20 youngest authorities 16 voted to remain, but of the 20 oldest authorities 19 voted to leave.

Such findings are generally consistent with past work on support for UKIP that talked about the importance of ‘left behind’ communities. Examining areas where support for UKIP was strongest, Matthew J Goodwin and Caitlin Milazzo (see also Robert Ford and Matthew J Goodwin 2014) noted how this was often ‘in areas where there were lots of older, white and poor voters, while it was consistently weaker in areas that were younger, more ethnically and culturally diverse, and financially secure’. It was these differences in local demography that helped to explain why UKIP won 40% of the vote in economically struggling places like Rotherham but only 14% in the more affluent and leafy Richmond upon Thames.

The relationship between deprivation and level of support for Brexit

However, others warn against an interpretation of the vote that focuses only on economic insecurity. One early analysis of the referendum result by Alisdair Rae suggests that while there is a strong correlation between support for Brexit and the percentage of people who have no qualifications this support was not strongly correlated with deprivation. Yet such findings stand at odds with other work. The Financial Times commissioned two economists to shed light on the relationship between wage growth and – as a proxy for the leave vote –past support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP). They found a statistically significant link between a lack of wage growth and the share of the vote going to UKIP at the 2015 general election. In working-class and struggling communities like Castle Point in Essex the real median wage had declined by 13% since 1997. Based on these findings Sarah Neville suggested that the gloomy economic forecasts released by the remain campaign had failed to resonate within communities that for a generation had lost out on the increases in wages that had been seen elsewhere in the country.

Work by the Resolution Foundation suggested there is no relationship between recent changes in an area’s prosperity and how they voted at the referendum. While some areas that voted to leave the EU had seen a big increase in real hourly earnings, such as Christchurch in Dorset, others that voted to remain in the EU had recently experienced a sharp drop in hourly earnings, such as Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire. However, further exploration at the aggregate-level suggested it was actually long-term entrenchment rather than recent change in the levels of incomes that tended to explain why support for Brexit was higher in some areas. Overall, it was areas where people tended to earn less that voted for Brexit even if these were not always the communities that had been the most badly affected in recent years. The implication is that ‘it’s the shape of our long lasting and deeply entrenched national geographical inequality that drove differences in voting patterns’.

The relationship between migration and level of support for Brexit

Another area of interest is the relationship between the vote for Brexit and migration, though current findings are mixed. Italo Colantone and Piero Stanig claim there is no evidence of correlation between support for Brexit and the proportion of immigrants or new immigrants. If anything, they argue, areas with more arrivals were more likely to vote Remain and areas with fewer arrivals were more likely to vote leave. But their claims are contested. Our earlier work did not find a positive relationship between support for leave and the ‘static’ level of immigration but we did find a positive relationship between the change in immigration and support for Brexit. After controlling for factors such as education, age and the overall level of immigration, communities that over the past decade had experienced an increase in migration from EU member states were somewhat more likely to vote for Brexit. For example, in Peterborough the estimated size of the EU migrant population increased by about 7 percentage points and 61% voted leave. Even though areas with relatively high levels of EU migration tended to be more pro-remain, areas that had experienced a sudden influx of EU migrants over the last 10 years were often more pro-leave. This finding is consistent with the argument that when it comes to the effect of immigration on the referendum what appears to matter the most is the experience of sudden population change rather than the overall level. Indeed, as Geoffrey Evans and Jon Mellon show, public concern about immigration as a political issue over time in Britain strongly tracks actual levels of immigration.

In summary, the findings of existing research are somewhat mixed and reveal a clear need to drill down to examine both the area and individual level, to which we now turn.

New research on Brexit examining dynamics of the vote

Support for Brexit by demographic group – personal finance, education, and attitudes and values

During the referendum and its aftermath a large number of polls were conducted which looked at public support for Brexit. Although many polls differed in terms of their estimated share of the vote for leave and remain they did tell a consistent story about which groups had voted leave. As with the aggregate analysis they found clear divides on age, education and ethnicity. Put simply, older, white and more economically insecure people with low levels of educational attainment were consistently more likely to vote for Brexit than younger people, degree-holders, minorities and the more secure middle- and upper-classes.

We can build on this work by exploring new data from the British Election Study (BES) Internet campaign study based on a very large sample of more than 31,000 respondents. This element was carried out before the referendum, during May and June 2016, and measures people’s intended vote rather than how they actually voted. While this is an online survey that is not as methodologically rigorous as face-to-face random probability surveys the overall results were reasonably close to the final outcome in terms of the result and variation across counting areas. The BES is also very helpful because the questionnaire includes a wide range of topics, including attitudes toward the EU, the referendum campaign, immigration, social and political values more generally and people’s backgrounds.

Figure 1 shows how support for leave varied among different demographic groups as the referendum neared.