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| In increasingly liberal Britain, we Tories have an age problem | In increasingly liberal Britain, we Tories have an age problem |
| (about 2 months later) | |
| It was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the prickly and unorthodox writer, diplomat and US senator, who coined what has surely become the defining aphorism of our times: “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” It is a truth too readily discarded by politicians and parties today. For an alarming number of Conservative party activists, Brexit has become something close to a cult, just as Corbynism is a Labour cult: all other agendas and perspectives are treated as deviant from the prevailing ideological purity. In both cases the process has been aided by its purgative effect on heretics. At both party conferences, most cult-rejecters stayed away. | It was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the prickly and unorthodox writer, diplomat and US senator, who coined what has surely become the defining aphorism of our times: “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” It is a truth too readily discarded by politicians and parties today. For an alarming number of Conservative party activists, Brexit has become something close to a cult, just as Corbynism is a Labour cult: all other agendas and perspectives are treated as deviant from the prevailing ideological purity. In both cases the process has been aided by its purgative effect on heretics. At both party conferences, most cult-rejecters stayed away. |
| The internal Tory mantra, intended to reunify the party and move beyond the self-destructive battle over which faction represents the true path to Brexit, is to point beyond the current battlefield to the post-Brexit horizon. “After Brexit” is what the Conservatives want us all to focus on. | The internal Tory mantra, intended to reunify the party and move beyond the self-destructive battle over which faction represents the true path to Brexit, is to point beyond the current battlefield to the post-Brexit horizon. “After Brexit” is what the Conservatives want us all to focus on. |
| The truth that they can’t or won’t face is that in the terms that they mean it, there is no such thing as “after Brexit”. The arguments about Brexit – whether it is right or wrong in principle and what it could or should mean in practice – will linger and continue to set the context for the gamut of political arguments for decades. | The truth that they can’t or won’t face is that in the terms that they mean it, there is no such thing as “after Brexit”. The arguments about Brexit – whether it is right or wrong in principle and what it could or should mean in practice – will linger and continue to set the context for the gamut of political arguments for decades. |
| The ageing Tories are a zombie party – but they have even bigger problems | Katy Balls | |
| For most voters – not all, by any means, but most – Brexit does not sit in isolation as a political issue. For a lot of people on both sides of the argument, the decision isn’t about the pragmatic arguments for or against being in the European Union. It is a proxy for a worldview and sits alongside an array of different social and cultural values. That is why it is so enduringly and deeply divisive. The real dividing line in the Brexit referendum and the election that Theresa May called last year was fundamentally one of values and worldview. | For most voters – not all, by any means, but most – Brexit does not sit in isolation as a political issue. For a lot of people on both sides of the argument, the decision isn’t about the pragmatic arguments for or against being in the European Union. It is a proxy for a worldview and sits alongside an array of different social and cultural values. That is why it is so enduringly and deeply divisive. The real dividing line in the Brexit referendum and the election that Theresa May called last year was fundamentally one of values and worldview. |
| It is a well-established fact that there was a stark age divide in the EU referendum: over-45s were for Brexit, under-45s for remain. Because views on Brexit are, for so many people, part of a wider worldview, exactly the same age divide applies to attitudes on, for example, immigration, multiculturalism, climate change, gay marriage, activist feminism, international aid and rehabilitative justice. | It is a well-established fact that there was a stark age divide in the EU referendum: over-45s were for Brexit, under-45s for remain. Because views on Brexit are, for so many people, part of a wider worldview, exactly the same age divide applies to attitudes on, for example, immigration, multiculturalism, climate change, gay marriage, activist feminism, international aid and rehabilitative justice. |
| The reflex of many Tories is to dismiss positive views on these as metropolitan London elitism, but research proves inarguably that they reflect the worldview of most people under 45 in every part of the UK. It is what social scientists call a cohort effect. It’s a function of the defining points of the world in which they have grown up: post-cold war, in the internet age of openness and free movement, and therefore of mass economic migration, and therefore of multiculturalism and diversity, and therefore of accelerating social liberalism. | The reflex of many Tories is to dismiss positive views on these as metropolitan London elitism, but research proves inarguably that they reflect the worldview of most people under 45 in every part of the UK. It is what social scientists call a cohort effect. It’s a function of the defining points of the world in which they have grown up: post-cold war, in the internet age of openness and free movement, and therefore of mass economic migration, and therefore of multiculturalism and diversity, and therefore of accelerating social liberalism. |
| Naturally enough, the vast majority of under-45s who have lived this political reality feel positive about these changes. Equally unsurprisingly, a generation 20 or 30 years older mostly finds the same changes unsettling, even threatening. Both points of view are completely understandable and neither is likely to change. But one is going to grow in number and the other is going to die out. | Naturally enough, the vast majority of under-45s who have lived this political reality feel positive about these changes. Equally unsurprisingly, a generation 20 or 30 years older mostly finds the same changes unsettling, even threatening. Both points of view are completely understandable and neither is likely to change. But one is going to grow in number and the other is going to die out. |
| Brexit brought these deeper values to the surface of politics and they defined the churn of the 2017 election. Views on Brexit and the associated worldviews are increasingly aligning with party support. In 2017 the crossover between the parties was at roughly the age of 47. Labour led the Tories by about 30% among under-47s, the Conservatives led Labour by a similar amount among older voters. The Tories led Labour among leave voters by about 30 percentage points but trailed Labour among remainers by a similar margin. They led Labour by seven points among people educated to below degree level, and trailed Labour by 15 points among graduates. | Brexit brought these deeper values to the surface of politics and they defined the churn of the 2017 election. Views on Brexit and the associated worldviews are increasingly aligning with party support. In 2017 the crossover between the parties was at roughly the age of 47. Labour led the Tories by about 30% among under-47s, the Conservatives led Labour by a similar amount among older voters. The Tories led Labour among leave voters by about 30 percentage points but trailed Labour among remainers by a similar margin. They led Labour by seven points among people educated to below degree level, and trailed Labour by 15 points among graduates. |
| Opposition to Brexit and its associated values is also much higher among ethnic minority communities than among white voters. The Brexitisation of the Tory vote also, therefore, contributed to it losing ground among non-white voters, who backed Labour by a margin of 73% to 19%; in a country that is becoming rapidly more ethnically diverse, the Conservatives garnered less support among non-white voters in 2017 than Donald Trump did in the US in 2016. | Opposition to Brexit and its associated values is also much higher among ethnic minority communities than among white voters. The Brexitisation of the Tory vote also, therefore, contributed to it losing ground among non-white voters, who backed Labour by a margin of 73% to 19%; in a country that is becoming rapidly more ethnically diverse, the Conservatives garnered less support among non-white voters in 2017 than Donald Trump did in the US in 2016. |
| In all these respects the Tories are, in effect, clinging on to the past and setting themselves against the future – living in a false reality, trying to have their own facts. It is an existential issue. We need urgently to come to terms with the reality of what Britain thinks – and feels – now. In an ever more diverse country with a growing majority in favour of open values, there is no future in being the closed values party of the past. | In all these respects the Tories are, in effect, clinging on to the past and setting themselves against the future – living in a false reality, trying to have their own facts. It is an existential issue. We need urgently to come to terms with the reality of what Britain thinks – and feels – now. In an ever more diverse country with a growing majority in favour of open values, there is no future in being the closed values party of the past. |
| • Andrew Cooper is a founder of Populus and a former director of strategy for David Cameron | • Andrew Cooper is a founder of Populus and a former director of strategy for David Cameron |
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