Do we all think the same about Europe? In one sense the obvious answer to that question is, ‘No’. After all, as our Poll of Polls shows, support for the two sides in the EU Referendum campaign that is now beginning to get into gear is almost evenly matched. At the moment at least Britain appears to be split down the middle on whether to leave or remain.
But this is not the only way in which we can address our question. We can also ask how far different sections of British society are inclined to hold different views about Britain’s membership. This is the perspective adopted by the first in a series of analysis papers to be published on this website as part of its attempt to provide impartial information on public attitudes to Europe in the run-up to the EU Referendum.
There is, after all, good reason to anticipate that some key differences and divisions will exist. Two in particular come to mind. First, we might well anticipate that on balance younger people will hold different views from older people. Second, we might reckon that graduates in well-paid jobs are typically happier about the prospect of remaining in Europe than are those with few, if any, educational qualifications for whom finding and keeping an adequately paid job can be more of a struggle.
Younger people have been brought up in a rather different world than the one in which their parents and grandparents were raised. For them there is nothing new about living in a racially, linguistically and religiously diverse society. They are thus less concerned about immigration – and concern about immigration is one of the key motivations behind many people’s opposition to staying in the EU. At the same time, they have grown up in an age of widespread international travel and communication, an experience that may well have left them more inclined to accept the principle of international collaboration that, for its advocates at least, is exemplified by the European Union.
At the same time, younger people are also more likely to have enjoyed a university education. This experience itself is likely to make them more aware of diverse cultures. But, crucially, such an education also means they are better equipped to secure employment in a labour market in which people from Britain can find themselves in competition for jobs with those living abroad. Indeed, they are also more likely to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the EU’s freedom of movement provisions to find work in another member state. In contrast, those with fewer educational qualifications who are in less secure, less well paid employment may well feel that what the inflow of migrants from the rest of the EU means greater difficulty in finding a job and a lower rate of pay when they do.
Our paper shows that recent polls and surveys consistently confirm that these differences exist. For a start, typically those aged under 35 are around twenty percentage points more likely than those aged 55 and over to say that they will vote to remain in the EU. There appears to be a big ‘generation gap’ in attitudes towards the EU.
But this is not the biggest gap. According to both the British Social Attitudes survey and the British Election Study, the difference between the views of graduates and those without any educational qualifications is even bigger, at somewhere between 30 and 40 percentage points. Graduates are mostly inclined to vote to remain, while many of those without any educational qualifications say that they want to leave. More broadly, remaining in the EU is relatively popular amongst those with at least some kind of post school leaving age qualification, whereas leaving is relatively popular amongst those whose highest qualification is that which would normally be obtained by the age of 16.
These big differences in attitudes indicate that the referendum is not just a debate about Britain’s relationship with the EU. It also reflects important social divisions within Britain. On one side of the divide are those who are capable of doing well in today’s globalised world and who are relatively comfortable with the cultural diversity this world can create. On the other side are those who feel they lose out from globalisation and are less comfortable with its cultural diversity. The eventual outcome will not only determine whether or not Britain remains in the EU, but will also tell us a lot about what kind of country we think we should be.
Read the full analysis paper:
Britain Divided? Who Supports and Who Opposes EU Membership
By John Curtice
John Curtice is Senior Research Fellow at NatCen and at 'UK in a Changing Europe', Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, and Chief Commentator on the What UK Thinks: EU website.
I am appalled at how MPs are behaving if this was a class of children the school would be put into Special Measures and that’s what I think our MPs should be put in. MPs should be working together to carry out. the will of the people, if not why was there a vote. This Country is no better than Russia, the only difference is: we can have our say and then do as we are told, well done UK democracy.
We had relative who died in both Wars, to fight for a better world, they would be immensely proud of the Shambles. MPs will certainly be fighting to be re-elected at the next General Election.
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Wise words LaliReport
Sovereignty. The Fallen of two World Wars, those who fought for this country’s sovereignty and against the expansion of Germany, must be turning in their graves as they see their fellow citizens, and especially the young, willing to hand over their nation’s sovereignty on a silver platter – and for a bowl of lentils! If that! It is in the interest of the multinationals and transnationals to be in – they are the ones reaping the profits. they are the ones without any commitment to any country. if labour is too expensive here, they will move factory somewhere else. Or, they’ll leave the factory here and bring workers from other countries and pay them what they would have earned there, thus exploitation to the max. Politicians are just their lackeys and their minions. And so, once again, it is the middle class, the working class, the poor and the vulnerable, the ones who have always sacrificed, the ones who are asked to sacrifice once more, this time asked to betray their nation, so that transnationals profits can be assured.Report
Yet again today more confusion over immigration and the economy.
Does it really matter whether net immigration is 160,000 or 300,000. The truth is that none of the government figures include the many thousands who have arrived illegally. We may never know the true value but I would expect it to be well over 300,000.
David Cameron and Theresa May have continually mislead the British public and should be accused of deceit and lies.
If we implement the Australian points based system, this would put an end to all of this and for once the UK would have complete control of who is allowed into our country.
Some diluted benefits plan brought back from Brussells by our esteemed leader is quite frankly a complete waste of time.
I wish to say that any human being will have the deepest sympathy with the husband, family and friends of the MP who was murdered last week. However although I rarely agree with any comments from Mr. Farage, it seems to me that the Remain campaign have somewhat used this as as propaganda to try and further their cause. Why was there an unprecedented recall of Parliament yesterday other than to rally the troops around a subject matter that should not be used in the wrong context. I consider this as preposterous and despicable but sadly expected from a an individual running scared of losing.
I am convinced that the only person David Cameron is concerned about is himself and his future in politics or beyond as per Mr. Blair.
Yesterday for the very first time in two months, I talked to a person who was adamantly going to vote to remain. I was curious as to his reasons. The answer was that he considered that if we vote to leave then there will be turmoil and strikes as in the 60’s and 70’s. Has he not heard of the current workers strikes in France, Italy and Spain????? To me the core issue was that as a retired banker he was more concerned about the possible effect to his completely overinflated pension and annual bonus payments than for the good of the country.
There was additional comment recently regarding the differences in social level and intellect of the two sides the debate.
I am pretty clear on this now.
Those that have wealth by fair means or foul are the hard core remainers. Those that work hard to provide for their families and want a better life, form the backbone of the out campaign.
My personal conclusion therefore is that the majority of our population will be better off outside of the EU and although there may be a couple of years of restructuring the long term benefits will be considerable to everyone.
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Does any one know of or have a link to a REMAIN forum because i would like to leave a few comments of my own – talking to you lot is preaching to the converted.
Lets all find a site where we can make a difference, and convert a few of those misguided, apathetic and ignorant unbelievers.
So much to do – so little timeReport
It is very interesting to read so many posts especially recently.
I have just returned from a week in Spain and was suprised by the reaction there to the referendum. The Spanish are a little bemused by it all but do generally fully understand why there is a growing desire to leave and some commented on the UK migrant problem. They see us as a small nation with good resources but don’t understand why the UK government is so involved in mattered outside of the U.K. Of the expats and home owners and holiday makers,the over riding view was to vote out.
As an intellectual individual I have been shocked by the Remain campaign which clearly considers the general public to be unintelligent and have no thought process or minds of their own.
A further ridiculous barrage of unqualified threats from George Osborne last week further cements the resolve of many undecided to now vote for an Exit.
I also heard that David Cameron flew in and out of Gibraltar yesterday by private jet to appeal to a population of around 28,000. At what cost to Joe public I wonder!!
I not only want us to remove ourselves from the financial burden and shackles of the EU, but also if the out campaign win then a vote of no confidence in the senior individuals who have backed the remain campaign and have them replaced by capable leaders who are in touch with the population. We have a plethora of highly skilled people in all areas of society whether that be finance, enviornment, education, judiciary, transport, food manufacturing, engineering, IT, design, manufacturing, defence, anti terrorism etc etc etc.
We certainly don’t need European assistance or to have our way of life dictated to by a bunch of political unionists based in Brussels.
Studying some second rate degree in politics plus a priveledged public school background of family wealth should no longer be accepted as the norm. How can any one of these relate to the day to day lives of most UK citizens.
Maybe this is why the remain camp consider us to be uneducated and treat us like infantiles.
I have one more gripe to mention. The mass of taxes that we pay individually outside of Income tax is huge. Although we never see a balance sheet I do wonder how much of this has been used to cover the cost of being in this futile Euro club. The only thing that we are not taxed for is the air we breath. However if we remain in Europe how long will it be before we are all fitted with fresh air meters!!!
The quicker we get out the better for me!!
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Chris I agree, the likes of Cameron and Osborne can, and probably will be removed or resign if the vote goes against them.
However we have in this country a perfectly tuned Civil Service that keep the ‘wheels in motion’ regardless of political parties coming and going – who give advice upon just about everything. (the programme ‘Yes Minister’ as example)
Why therefore, one asks have these administrators allowed this country to go down the path, we now find ourselves at the end of.?Report
Well said Nic
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I am a finance professional with a University degree as well as a chartered qualification. I must buck the trend with respect to middle aged educated professionals leaning on ‘Remain’. As I see Brexit as the only way forward for the UK. To me democracy is paramount and my experience of the EU is that it is anything but democratic. In any honest cost benefit analysis or value for money review, the EU fairs poor to awful.
The are untruths and half-truths willingly provided and spun on both sides of this debate, nobody can deny this.
When it comes down to the decision, I, who am European and an experienced EU traveller, opt strongly for Britain to leave the EU.
The EU and is bureaucracy is just too big to be to be efficient or effective, and too fractious to be useful in any way to the peoples of Europe. It as with all overlord empires will ultimately fail, to be brought down by the very people it so dominates.Report
We are now living in a society in which the minimum wage is often also the maximum wage. If you don’t like it then there are no shortage of our fellow Europeans to whom £7.20 (or apparently less) per hour represents a level of luxury that they could never achieve in their own countries. This situation obviously suits employers very nicely (as they haven’t exactly been shy about telling us) because their labour costs have fallen without them having to do unpalateable things like managing their businesses better. Unsurprisingly many of the workers so affected may be a tad ‘ungrateful’ to the EU on the 23rd June. Add in all the other factors discussed at length here over the past months and Brexit looks almost inevitable to me.
If we do Brexit life will go on. The scare stories about all trade with Europe, workers rights, travel abroad and pensions etc, etc all suddenly ending on June 25th just aren’t true. Why, just for example, would maternity pay have to stop if we left the EU as the Union leaders claimed? Anyway, even if the EU wanted to impose sanctions against Britain could you imagine how long it would take for them to implement them and what a ballsup they’d make of the job. Far easier to stick to regulating the curvature of bananas, rescuing a desperately shaky Euro or holding together the remainder of an even shakier EU.Report
I would describe myself as undecided, and have never thought of myself as Euro-sceptic. Since this campaign started, I just keep hearing ‘umpteen billion’ for this and ‘umpteen billion’ for that. It just sounds like they’re trying to outbid each other. But each time I hear a scare story about leaving, I find it a bit less scary.
On the whole I see the leavers as self reliant optimists and the remainers as confidence lacking pessimists, seeking safety within Europe from the big world outside. Even if we vote to remain, the arguments will continue and we will never be (and the Europeans will never see us as) enthusiastic, fully committed members. As the campaigning goes on I feel myself drifting further toward the precipice, looking over the edge and thinking it’s not actually so scary after all.
I’m just an ordinary working man and have no particular economic or political axe to grind, and I’ve got no beef with immigrants who want to travel the world and better themselves. All I want to do is earn a living and live a happy peaceful life.
As for the relative merits of leave/remain, I really have no idea. But I might just jump for the hell of it. Nothing much is going to change if we stay. Anyway, that’s my two penn’orth.
Still don’t know which way I’m gonna vote though…
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Yes it’s interesting that so many views have come to light on this subject –
If our beloved leader hadn’t been so desperate for power and offered the carrot of ‘If I win the next election there will be a referendum’ none of them would have surfaced, even though below the surface there obviously was/is massive discontent with much to do with the EU –
What I find confusing is why they have to uproot from Brussels to Strasbourg once a month incurring enormous cost to the tax payer. (around £90 to £130 million a year or we are told around £920+ million in the 7 year budget cycle) Why?
Plus of course I would never want to belong to a club that sacked its chief accountant when she raised concerns about flaws in their accounting system which opened potential avenues of fraud. Report
Okay Ladies and Gents, I would like to make a suggestion. There is a very good way of assessing what “truth” you are choosing to believe. Try and look at “facts” you disagree with, and then find out if these are true. Do this with an open mind. There is a big problem here with points made on both sides of the argument where people are checking “facts” which support what they already think. This creates a bias. The only way around it is to check “facts” which don’t support what you think anyway.
I will chuck in an example from above. Mr Trevor Smith makes some strong points to leave and then throws in some unfortunate inaccuracies which make his arguments less strong. One example is when he says we are technically in recession. We are not. Growth is less then the forecast but recession “technically” is when we have negative growth, in other words when the economy shrinks. Less growth is not shrinking and is not recession. I see his point that we have less growth, but it is better to say this as it comes across more credible. I imagine the less growth supported the idea that we were doing badly because of the EU and so led to the assumption we were in recession.
Other than this, I don’t want to weigh in with my views as I think you have all made your minds up. The only way to change your minds (if you actually want to) is to check the facts you don’t agree with and see where you stand. I doubt many will do this, but it will help remove bias. For example, if you think Briton cannot support 300k immigrants per year because you feel this to be wrong, check facts such as increase tax receipts, house building issues, does the increase support the NHS more than it burdens it? Who would do the work the immigrants do? (don’t assume Brits would, maybe we have moved on from some of this low end manual work). Do more immigrants come from inside the EU or outside? Similarly, check how laws are made. If you want to stay in find out which laws made in Europe make any difference to us and which are our laws anyway. Check the democratic process. It may be more democratic than you think….and less democratic in the UK than yoh think. See how democratic it is, don’t assume it isn’t because that’s what you’ve been told. If you want out, you will already believe we have lost sovereignty, so check if this is really true. For example, if we stay in, but decide we want out in 5 years, can we do this. Anyway, have fun. Hope you all vote. Report
Yes Ed I agree with your comment – Hope you all vote – . Unfortunately we will finish up with a result on the 24th that is born of ignorance and apathy linked to a view of ‘I can;t be bothered’, and ‘better the devil you know’.attitudes. Regardless of that I feel that those who reside in the UK should be mandated to vote – or at least turn up. What they do to their voting paper is up to them. But at least it will have been democratic – something I feel we have lost belonging to the EU. Report
Quite so RogerReport
The most dangerous issue is being ignored. If we leave, then Scotland will surely demand a new independence referendum. If they gain independence then Westminster would be left with a massive Tory majority. The built in Tory majority without Scotland is so large, that there is a real prospect of a permanent Tory Government at Westminster. Is that what we want?Report