The Global Financial Crisis

The Global Financial Crisis, which began in 2007–8, was the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and acted as a large shock to British politics. The economic vote is usually thought about as a short-term mechanism: a reward or punishment for the incumbent depending on recent economic conditions. In this chapter we examine how this shock played a role in the outcome of the 2015 General Election, seven years after the crisis began. The Global Financial Crisis continued to affect voting behaviour in 2015 for two reasons: first, it did long-lasting damage to perceptions of Labour’s economic competence, and second, it created a political opportunity for the Conservatives to blame the previous Labour government for the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Brexit and the Reshaping of British Electoral Politics

In this chapter we show how the vote to leave the EU in 2017 brought about a return to two-party politics and a fundamental shift in the social and geographical alignment of party support. Electoral competition between the two main parties previously dominated by concerns relating to redistribution, taxation, and an emphasis on the free market versus social protection now also focused almost equally on the EU, immigration, and liberal–authoritarian values. For the first time in modern history, economic left–right competition between Labour and the Conservatives was accompanied by a commensurate emphasis on a second cultural, or social, dimension of politics. This was also reflected in changes in the demographic patterns of party support, especially age and education.

Turbulent British Politics

This chapter sets out a novel theoretical approach for understanding electoral change. This approach focuses on the mechanisms and consequences of electoral shocks in the context of electoral volatility. The chapter sets out the reasons for focusing on shocks, a definition of electoral shocks, and the mechanisms through which shocks affect voting behaviour. We argue that the consequences of electoral shocks depend on how politicians respond to those shocks and compete around them, and how they are politicized in the wider media environment. The chapter explains why the gradual destabilization of the party system means that electoral shocks are having increasingly dramatic consequences.

EU Accession Immigration and the Rise of UKIP

This chapter explains how the powerful issue dimensions of the EU and immigration were combined in the 2004 decision for open immigration with EU accession countries. As immigration rose in the 2000s, the salience of immigration increased substantially. The 2004 immigration decision had two key consequences. Firstly, it greatly constrained the ability of UK governments to change the level of immigration in response to public opinion, and secondly, it closely linked the previously separate issues of immigration and Europe. The salience of immigration was related most strongly to media coverage of the issue, which in turn closely tracked the actual rates of immigration. UKIP capitalized on this combined EU/immigration dimension and substantial numbers of voters switched to UKIP from the major parties in 2015 on this basis. We show that without the high salience of immigration between 2010 and 2015, the defections to UKIP would have been relatively small.

Volatility and Electoral Shocks

The General Elections of 2015 and 2017 marked a historically high level of volatility, both at the aggregate level and at the level of the individual voter. In this chapter we describe how this increased volatility is part of a long-term trend in British politics, but one which accelerated markedly after 2010. At the aggregate level, 2015 and 2017 were the two most volatile elections since 1931. At the individual-level, they were the two most volatile elections we have data to measure. Unlike aggregate volatility, which has changed erratically over time, we show that individual-level volatility has been steadily and significantly increasing since 1964. Moreover, unlike many elections when vote flows favouring one party are compensated by counter-flows favouring another, voters in 2015 and 2017 moved systematically, first away from, and then towards the two major parties.

Scotland

The 2015 General Election saw a collapse in Labour support in Scotland resulting in almost total annihilation in terms of parliamentary seats north of the border. In this chapter we show how the referendum on independence in Scotland in September 2014 precipitated this upheaval. We show that the Scottish independence referendum had a realigning effect on party identification in Scotland, cementing the link between SNP voting and pro-independence attitudes. Two years later, a second electoral shock in the form of the EU referendum disrupted this new political equilibrium in Scotland.

Conclusions

This chapter summarizes the main arguments of the book and discusses how each of the five shocks shaped the outcomes of the 2015 and 2017 general elections. We reflect on the role played by the three different mechanisms identified in our theory—salience, competence, and party image—which had varying degrees of importance in the impact of each shock. We consider whether the changes might be long-lasting and how new identities may (or may not) replace fading party identities, and the implications our book has for the future of British politics, and for a more general understanding of electoral change.

Reward, Blame, and Guilt by Association? The Electoral Collapse of the Liberal Democrats

In 2015 the Liberal Democrats won 8.1 per cent of the vote, only a third of what they managed five years earlier, making it their worst performance since 1970. As a result, they faced almost complete electoral wipe-out, winning only eight seats, losing forty-nine of the fifty-seven they had won in 2010. Two years later in 2017, the Liberal Democrats hoped that they might ride an anti-Brexit wave to recovery. Instead, the Liberal Democrats only made a net gain of four seats and lost a further half point of vote share. In this chapter we explore the reasons behind the 2015 collapse and failure to recover in 2017. We argue that the answer lies in the party’s involvement in the 2010–15 coalition government. As a result of coalition, many left-leaning Liberal Democrat voters deserted the party and as their support plummeted they also lost tactical voters because of the damage to their electoral viability.

The Rise of the Volatile Voter

In this chapter we show how the twin processes of partisan dealignment and party system fragmentation have underpinned the increase in electoral volatility. Fragmentation creates volatility because smaller parties consistently lose a much higher proportion of their voters between elections than the major parties. Partisan dealignment matters because there is a strong and consistent relationship between a voter’s level of partisanship and the likelihood of them switching parties at the next election. While this accounts for a substantial proportion of the trend in volatility, it is less clear why partisan identification has itself declined. We show a clear pattern of generational replacement in partisan identification, with newer cohorts entering with lower levels of partisanship and remaining relatively stable over time.

Introduction

What has changed in British politics? Volatility. The British party system, and the electorate within it, have become more volatile over time, delivering substantial increases in fragmentation, in 2015, and then the largest two-party share in decades, in 2017. This chapter explains the focus of the book; what we explain, and then how we go about doing so. We focus on long-term changes in volatility, what explains that volatility, and what explains the parties that benefit from this in general elections, specifically focusing on vote outcomes in the 2015 and 2017 Elections through novel explanations combining the effects of electoral shocks in a context of increasing vote switching between elections. The chapter provides an overview of the book.