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ISSUES: Citizenship
Chapter 3: Politics in the UK
How Britain voted in 2015
F
or every election since 1979,
Ipsos MORI has produced
estimates of how the voters
voted. Because the (very successful)
exit poll we and GfK carry out for the
BBC, ITV and Sky is only designed
to predict seat shares, and by virtue
of its design gives no demographic
information, we hope that these
figures provide a useful resource to
politicians, commentators, academics
and the public themselves to better
understand voting behaviour, and the
relative performance of the parties.
To forestall any questions, it should be
noted that these are estimates, and are
based on aggregating the data from
our election polls and other surveys
over the course of the campaign, which
asked people how they intended to
vote. However, as we have done in the
past, the voting intention figures are
weighted to the final actual results and
turnout at a regional level. Whilst this
means these figures are still estimates,
this step should make them a more
reliable guide to how different sub-
groups voted (more thoughts on the
performance of our polls can be found
on the Ipsos MORI website, including
how much of our overestimation
of the Labour share may be due to
Labour supporters being more likely
to exaggerate their likeliness to vote,
when we had other parties within two
points of their actual share). The larger
sample size we get from aggregating
(over 9,000, including over 6,000 who
said theywould vote, whichwe hope to
update later with further data to over
10,000) also allows more confidence
when looking at sub-groups.
So what do the findings tell us? Here
are some initial thoughts:
1.
The Conservative share holds
up well across most groups, as
would be expected given their
success in the election. Labour,
meanwhile, failed to achieve
the swing it needed other than
among young people and renters.
Labour only had a clear lead over
the Conservatives among 18–34s,
voters in social class DE, among
private and social renters, and BME
(black, minority, ethnic) voters.
2.
Even worse for Labour, their vote
share actually fell among those
aged 65+, the highest turnout
group, to just one in four. This
group is where the Conservatives
were most successful, gaining
a 5.5 point swing from Labour
since 2010. The Conservatives also
achieved a three point swing from
Labour among ABs, another high
turnout group.
3.
While the vote share of the two
main parties is broadly stable,
the pattern of voting for other
parties has completely changed.
The Liberal Democrats’ vote share
has collapsed across the board,
only getting above 10% among
ABs (their smallest fall is among
those aged 65+, where they had a
lower share in 2010 to begin with).
They have fallen sharpest among
under 34s (perhaps related to
tuition fees) and private renters,
who are the most likely to vote
Green. Meanwhile, UKIP take
third place among nearly every
group (exceptions again include
social classes AB, and BME voters),
and do best among older, white,
working class voters.
4.
As we have seen in recent
elections,
the
Conservative-
Labour swing among the men
and women vote overall was very
similar. Both vote Conservative in
relatively equal proportions, while
women are slightly more likely to
vote Labour and less likely to vote
UKIP. There are more differences
though if we do not treat men and
women as homogenous groups.
Most notably, younger women
had the biggest swing to Labour
of any group, while older women
had a small swing back to the
Conservatives. The two groups
are almost exact opposites of each
other: Labour has a 20-point lead
among women aged 18–24, while
the Conservatives have an 18 point
lead among women over 55.
5.
Both Conservatives and Labour
increased their vote share among
BME
voters,
but
remained
unchanged among white voters.
This may be related to the rise
of UKIP among white voters (to
14% of the vote), which may have
cancelled out some of the Liberal
Democrat’s fall, while among BME
voters only 2% said they would
vote UKIP.
6.
Patterns
of
turnout
remain
relatively
unchanged,
with
concerning implications for the
future of democratic engagement.
There appears to be no significant
increase in turnout among young
people, with 18–24s almost half as
likely to vote as those aged 65%
(43% vs 78%; in 2010 estimated
turnout for 18–24s was 44%).
Similarly, turnout remains lower
among the working classes,
renters, and BME communities.
26 August 2015
Ö
The above information is reprinted
with kind permission from Ipsos
MORI. Please visit
-
mori.com for further information.
© Ipsos MORI 2017
