Has your “status” in society affected the way you have voted? Did your education play a part in shaping your political opinions?

Back in the 1970s, class was paramount in politics, with the working-class strikes against Thatcher’s policies and the sharp divides in voting behaviour between the rich and the poor. But is social class starting to lose its influence on British politics today?

So, what do we mean when we discuss social class?

To keep it simple, in this blog we’ll base it upon job sectors. According to the Office for National Statistics, your socio-economic classification can be spilt into 6 categories: A, B, C1 – those seen as the middle/upper class – and C2, D & E – the working class (UK geographics , 2014). There are differences between these categories in terms of political engagement, but these have become blurred and have changed over time.

Much of the voting during the post-war period was based on class position. The working class predominantly saw Labour as “their” party whilst the middle and upper classes were primarily Conservative. You can see this in Figure 1, showing that 66% of C2DE voters (i.e. working class) voted Labour in 1970, a statistic which halves when you look at the ABC1 middle class. However, the table also highlights to us the radical change that has taken place since this time – with the middle class vote for Labour rising steadily to a peak of 57% in 2010, exceeding the working class vote.  Surely this marks a phenomenal shift for the so-called “workers” party?

Labour performance 1970-2010

Election	Labour vote (millions)			Division of electorate by social class (%)
	ABC1	C2DE	Total	ABC1	C2DE
1970	2.2	10.0	12.2	34	66
1974 Feb	1.9	9.7	11.6	35	65
1974 Oct	1.9	9.6	11.5	35	65
1979	2.8	8.7	11.5	36	64
1983	1.7	6.8	8.5	37	63
1987	2.2	7.8	10.0	38	62
1992	3.2	8.3	11.5	43	57
1997	5.5	8.0	13.5	49	51
2001	4.6	6.1	10.7	52	48
2005	4.8	4.8	9.5	55	45
2010	4.4	4.2	8.6	57	43

Source: derived from British General Election of… series, 1970-2001; YouGov 2005, 2010

Figure 1: Labour vote by Social Class 1970 – 2010

And the opposite has occurred for the Conservatives. Figure 2 shows that the C2 voted for the party usually favoured by the upper classes , it rose more than the middle class vote between 2015 and 2017. Labour also gained their highest amount of ABC1s since 1979 in the 2017 election (Skinner & Mortimore, 2017). Are these positive findings in the struggle to remove class inequalities? Arguably so – voters from different backgrounds no longer feel confined to certain parties, thus encouraging them to engage with politics more.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/datablog/ng-interactive/2017/jun/20/young-voters-class-and-turnout-how-britain-voted-in-2017

Figure 2: A graph showing increase in voting by each class between 2015 and 2017 elections.

In my experience, the reason for the increase in support for Labour from the middle class is due to the change in the way they present themselves – no longer the party for the workers, but now the party supporting younger generations. Looking at the changing support for different parties also highlights the idea of intersectionality within political engagement. It means that it’s not just age or socio-economic status that affects whether an individual engages with politics, but an interaction of factors, including the image parties paint of themselves.

Brexit showed that the class divides continue to affect voting. 57% of the AB group voted in the referendum compared to the proportions in the other four groups being just 36% (Hope, 2016). The middle classes have felt the benefits of globalisation more greatly through international co-operation (Kellner, 2011), perhaps explaining their motivation to turn out and support the EU – although it was the working classes’ vote for Leave that triumphed, suggesting their voices are beginning to be heard.

But political participation isn’t just about voting. The working-class riots in the Thatcher era showed political engagement at its most powerful, yet also emphasised the class divides. Many manual workers were faced with unemployment, crippling social problems, and therefore a rebellion of miners and trade union members against the Conservative party came into action (Jones , 2013) .  Today,  it’s not only the working class going on strikes and taking industrial action against the politics of our country. Teachers are generally middle-class, but there have been many strikes by teachers against Conservative austerity measures in recent years. Are we slowly starting to see the middle and upper classes standing up against their own?

Teachers bring about another key point when it comes to political engagement – education.  During the 2015 general election, over 50% of those with low levels of education didn’t vote –  versus 10% for those who were degree-educated, in managerial roles (Evans & Tilley, 2017).  The relative education model supports this relationship as it states that well-educated individuals are positioned in networks that advance their political activities, making them more likely to be engaged (Aars & Christensen, 2018).

As shown in Figure 3, the number of MPs who have graduated from university has increased since 1979 across all parties apart from the SNP. The MPs are representing those who vote and have the connections, which is those with higher social class and education, highlighted in the video below.  Have they got these jobs due to their connections or knowledge? What can schools do to make Parliament more representative of the people it serves?

One key way could be to encourage compulsory political activities at all schools, to make sure there is understanding of the political system regardless of background. I have completed a Citizenship GCSE, and part of it involved creating a campaign for something that we felt needed to be addressed, helping me to understand from a young age what I could do to make a difference within society.

Therefore, in terms of class and political engagement, the divides seem to be becoming less and less apparent. But education still needs to be improved across the whole country, for rich and for poor, to create a society where our class no longer influences whether or not we choose to vote.

Bibliography

Aars, J. & Christensen, D., 2018. Education and political participation: the impact of educational environments. Acta Politica.

Audickas, L. & Cracknell, R., 2018. Social Background of MPs 1979 – 2017, London: House of Commons Library.

Evans, G. & Tilley, J., 2017. The New Politics of Class: The Political Exclusion of the British Working Class. Oxford: OUP .

Holder, J., Barr, C. & Kommenda, N., 2017. Young voters, class and turnout: how Britain voted in 2017. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/datablog/ng-interactive/2017/jun/20/young-voters-class-and-turnout-how-britain-voted-in-2017
[Accessed 4 March 2019].

Hope, C., 2016. Britian’s ruling classes were only group to vote to stay in the EU at referendum, major new report finds. [Online]
Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/29/britains-ruling-classes-were-only-group-to-vote-to-stay-in-the-e/
[Accessed 3 March 2019].

Jones , O., 2013. Verso: Class War: Thatcher’s attack on trade unions, industry and working class identity. [Online]
Available at: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1274-class-war-thatcher-s-attack-on-trade-unions-industry-and-working-class-identity
[Accessed 3 March 2019].

Kellner, P., 2011. YouGov: Labour is not just the party of the working class. [Online]
Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2011/05/16/labour-not-just-party-working-class
[Accessed 02 March 2019].

Skinner, G. & Mortimore, R., 2017. IPSOS Mori: How Britain voted in the 2017 election. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2017-election
[Accessed 3 March 2019].

UK geographics , 2014. UK Geographics: Social Grade A, B, C1, C2, D & E. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ukgeographics.co.uk/blog/social-grade-a-b-c1-c2-d-e
[Accessed 02 March 2019].