How British people think the EU and Europeans see them depends not just on whether they’re Leavers or Remainers, but on whether they’re young or old, find Javier Sajuria, Tim Bale and Sarah Wolff. Age is a much bigger factor than gender.
Research by the LSE’s Sara Hobolt and her colleagues suggests that Remain and Leave are becoming crucial political identities, rivalling more familiar influences like party identification and class in their explanatory power and, potentially, their electoral consequences. Leavers and Remainers display a series of cognitive biases on all sorts of questions, some of them having little direct relationship to the issue of the UK’s membership of the EU that helped create those identities in the first place.
A survey we conducted in February 2019 reinforces that finding – and, just as importantly, suggests that age is becoming a crucial, if not always the crucial, difference when it comes to attitudes to Europe. The identity gap between Leavers and Remainers has quickly established itself as one of the most important phenomena in British politics today. But the generation gap (something much talked about in the aftermath of the general election of 2017) also matters – and, when it comes to Europe, it matters a lot.
Although many surveys have tapped into attitudes towards holding a second referendum, party politics and leadership, and how Europeans think about Brexit, there has been so far little work on Britons’ perceptions of Europeans and Europe during the negotiations.
On behalf of Queen Mary University’s Centre for European Research, we designed and commissioned a survey of 1799 British people on their attitudes to and perceptions of Europeans on Brexit, with the fieldwork conducted by YouGov in February 2019.
The findings are easily summarised – and each and every time there was a big gap not just between Leavers and Remainers but also between young and old.
Brits think that Brexit has damaged Britain’s reputation in Europe and that citizens of other European countries are sorry to see Britain leave. Just over half (55%) of Brits think that Brexit has made citizens of other European countries think more negatively about Britain – a view shared by 78% of Remain voters but only 35% of Leave voters. In terms of age differences, 71% of 18-24’s expect Europeans to take a more negative view of the UK, compared to just 44% of over 65s.
Just under half (48%) of Brits think that Europeans are sorry to see Britain leave, but almost 30% think that Europeans don’t really care either way. On the same issue, Leave (49%) and Remain (54%) voters are closer together in thinking that Europeans will be sorry to see Britain leave, yet their differences are still statistically significant. The biggest difference here is, again, age: 59% of older respondents (65+) think Europeans will be sorry to see Britain leave, against 39% of 18-24 year olds.
Overall, just over half (58%) of the UK public believe the EU has been harsh towards the UK during Brexit negotiations, with the vast majority of Conservative voters (83%) and Leavers (84%) agreeing. Over three quarters (78%) of over 65s thought the same but only 37% of 18-24 year olds and 48% of 25-49 year olds thought so too.
And there is another crucial generation gap – although perhaps one more easily explained by immediate self-interest. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of 18-24 year olds think that losing the right to live, work and study in other EU countries is a serious loss for British people – a view shared by 67% of Labour voters and 82% of Remain voters across all age groups but by only a third (34%) of all Brits over 65. Nearly half (47%) of Leave voters think it is a loss but that it is a price worth paying as long as the UK leaves the EU, while nearly a quarter of them (24%) aren’t really worried about the ending of such rights. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, those who theoretically stand to lose most in the future from Brexit, at least in terms of their rights to live, work and study in the EU, are far more bothered about the loss of such rights than older Brits.
But self-interest cannot really explain differences on the question of whether respondents thought the EU will be weaker after Britain has left. Some 54% of British people think that it will. But once again there is a generation gap, with almost 70 per cent of over 65s thinking the EU will be weaker. In contrast, 47% of younger respondents believe the same. And, once again, the gap between Leavers and Remainers is high: 66% of Leavers think the EU will be weaker, compared to 55% of those who voted Remain, although it is worth noting that it is still a majority of them.
What is most interesting, however, is that age differences seem to matter even after controlling for the vote in the referendum. Figure 1, which shows how the probability of thinking the EU has been a harsh negotiator increases as respondents get older, is one example.
Figure 1: Older people much more likely to think the EU has been a harsh negotiator
Note: Predicted probability plots estimated from a logistic regression, controlling for gender, social class, and EU referendum vote
Another example is provided by Figure 2, which shows how the probability of thinking that Europeans will be sorry to see the UK leave decreases as respondents get older.
Figure 2: Older people less likely to think citizens of EU countries will be sorry to see the UK leave
Note: Predicted probability plots estimated from a logistic regression, controlling for gender, social class, and EU referendum vote
Our survey also highlights a proverbial dog that didn’t bark in the night – in other words, something that, unlike age, doesn’t seem to matter. On none of the questions above did the gender of the respondent seem to make a significant difference to people’s answers.
At least when it comes to what Brits think about how Europeans see and treat them, being a man or a woman is far less important than how they voted back in 2016 and, as our survey clearly shows, just how old they are. Whether younger generations will change their tune as they get older and as Brexit (presuming it happens) becomes an established reality – with all that entails for how people in other member states come to view this country – remains to be seen.
Please read our comments policy before commenting.
Note: This article first appeared on our sister site, LSE Brexit. It gives the views of the authors, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Tim Jokl via a CC-BY-NC 2.0 licence
_________________________________
Javier Sajuria – Queen Mary University of London
Javier Sajuria is Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary University of London and Editor in Chief of Politics, one of the Political Studies Association’s flagship journals. (@jsajuria)
–
Tim Bale – Queen Mary University of London
Tim Bale is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London and Director of the Mile End Institute. (@proftimbale)
–
Sarah Wolff – Queen Mary University of London
Sarah Wolff is Director of the Centre for European Research and Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. (@drsarahwolff)
Has it occurred to the authors that most Leavers simply “don’t care” what the EU or Europeans “think” of the UK or the British (in general not as indoviduals) ?
This would go some way to explaining the differences.
Perhaps someone can tell us what is the socialogical term for that character trait (i.e. being bothered what others think about oneself).
And the “age” factor is no surprise – as it seems to be a well known phenomenon that teenagers are most prone to the idea of “fitting in” – with fashion-following declining with age.
So it would seem unwise for EU fans to assume that the young – who currently “care” about image – will carry on caring as much into maturity.
Similarly EU fans should be wary of taking comfort from:
>Nearly two-thirds (63%) of 18-24 year olds think that losing the right to live, work and study in other EU countries is a serious loss for British people. <
Of course, few of the current youngest will have tried much "living, work or study" in the EU yet.
But as they grow older, and more of their peers will actually do those things, that cohort's "worry" seems likely to diminish.
Think about it …..
Those unconcerned grandparents will have seen their children or friend's children doing some or all of those things in the EU.
The debate about whether the extreme age split on the EU will be sustained in future is an interesting one. The Leave appeal is basically built on four key types of argument:
1. Anti-immigration arguments.
2. The nationalist obsession with “other countries telling us what to do” and the government “selling us out on the international stage”.
3. A broad range of conspiracy theory style arguments about the EU controlling all our lives (inflating the scope/importance of EU legislation and claiming that our country is constantly bullied into accepting laws it doesn’t agree with).
4. Bureaucratic waste arguments (pretending the EU budget is much larger than it is and that it’s incredibly corrupt – the complete myth about the accounts never being signed off, etc.)
Some of those arguments have some longevity to them. The nationalist obsession with other countries “telling us what to do” is actually a stable feature of British politics throughout the past few centuries. It will exist whether we’re in the EU or not, the EU is simply the current target for people with this kind of worldview.
However, others aren’t likely to be sustained or are built on flat out misinformation that anyone who has come through the school/university system in the last 20 years will be more likely to see through. The Leave campaign is also such a toxic brand with young people at present that it’s unlikely to prove popular in the long run. Opinions change over time, but when there’s a catastrophically bitter political event of the kind Brexit has become, those views can become entrenched for decades. We’ve seen that with other examples (Conservative popularity in Scotland, for instance, following Thatcher).
Leavers, on average, have done absolutely nothing as it stands to reach out to Remainers, particularly young voters, who are simply told to shut up, even if they were too young to vote in 2016. It’s a campaign that has been driven in every sense by anger and bitterness, largely at other British citizens, and that is in no way a route to building a lasting consensus. You’ve even managed to provide a variant of this in your comment with your “Leavers simply have a stronger backbone and the young care too much about being popular” theory.
For Brexit to be sustainable long-term, there has to be some kind of buy in from future generations and/or those who are currently in favour of remaining. Screaming “you lost, get over it” at every turn isn’t going to work and very few people on the Leave side seem to understand this (or care). That’s even if we ignore the tangible benefits that might be apparent in future with a struggling UK economy, our loss of travel rights, and everything else that goes with Brexit.
In short, if Leavers want future generations to swing behind Brexit then they’ll need to do precisely the opposite of what they’re doing now and I don’t hold out the slightest hope of that happening.
I am much more in tune with Brian Allan’s take on the Brexit situation than with Patrick, although I agree with Patrick that many Leavers simply do not care what the EU or even EU citizens think of we British people at present.
I’d just like to add to Brian’s excellent summary that what we have read in the tabloid press (including much misinformation) over many years has encouraged/shaped an intense “us and them” attitude in (many) Leave voters and this is unlikely to budge even in the light if major disruption to the economy and the manufacturing industry etc.
Thank you to the LSE authors for providing some interesting stats on the subject.