Ever since the UK voted to leave the EU, there has been a steady stream of articles and analysis trying to figure out why. Clearly there is more than one answer: different people voted for Brexit for different reasons. Nonetheless there are some patterns. By analysing the vote share by local authority, the Resolution Foundation found that areas with higher employment rates, larger student populations, more people with degrees and higher social cohesion were more likely to vote remain. Areas with more old people, more homeowners and those that have only recently seen an increase in immigration were more likely to vote leave.
But one possibility has proved controversial: was austerity partly responsible? Chris Dillow thinks it’s possible. Austerity contributed to stagnant incomes, which may have increased resentment towards “elites”, and to a decline in public services which the leave campaign blamed on immigration. Chris’ thesis received a bit of stick on Twitter from Giles Wilkes and Rupert Harrison.
In one sense, they have a point. The Resolution Foundation’s analysis looked at how average incomes in different areas were related to the share of votes for leave. While the level of income was important, recent changes were not, suggesting that the income effect isn’t related to austerity. But in another way Chris might be right. Stagnating incomes may be an indirect effect of austerity, but a rather more direct effect (which is not included in the Resolution Foundation’s analysis) is the deterioration in public services.
Austerity has led to cuts in many public services, but local councils – who take out the bins, run the libraries and provide social care – have been hit particularly hard. Local government spending power[i] in England fell by nearly 15% in real terms between 2011/12 and 2015/16, but the impact wasn’t felt equally in all parts of the country. Areas that collect a lot of council tax relative to their total spending got off lightly – Surrey’s spending power fell by less than 5% in real terms – while those that rely heavily on central government grants have been hammered – Liverpool City Council’s spending power fell by nearly 23%.
Big drops in spending power mean closing libraries, fewer bin collections and cuts to social care. It seems plausible that in areas where public services have deteriorated further, the argument that immigrants are overwhelming these services – as championed by the Faragist wing of the leave campaign – may have more traction.
The chart below shows how changes in spending power in local authorities in England[ii] between 2011/12 and 2015/16 are related to the share of votes cast for leave.
Change in local government spending power (horizontal axis) versus share of votes case for leave, upper-tier local authorities in England
You might look at this and think there is no clear correlation – but the distribution is far from random. It looks to me like there are two things going on: a negative correlation for most areas, plus a cluster at the bottom left that seems to behave differently. There are no prizes for guessing where most of these outliers are located: they are London boroughs.
The next chart shows the same data with inner (blue) and outer (red) London boroughs highlighted. London voted differently to the rest of the country. Inner London (and some “outer London” boroughs such as Newham) saw big cuts in local government spending, but voted overwhelmingly for remain.
Change in local government spending power (horizontal axis) versus share of votes case for leave, upper-tier local authorities in England
Blue dots are inner London boroughs, red dots outer London
Not all London boroughs followed this pattern. Havering had a relatively small drop in local government spending, but voted heavily for leave. This shows the limitations of using “London boroughs” as a sociological grouping. Havering is the most easterly London borough and surrounded on three sides by Essex. It is just a half hour’s drive from Newham, but a very different place.
Just as not all of London followed a “London-like” voting pattern, not all other areas followed an “unLondon” voting pattern. If we exclude London from the chart, there are still a few stray dots hanging around in that bottom left area – areas that, like many parts of London, voted remain despite large council cuts. Again, there are no prizes for guessing where these places are: successful cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol and Brighton.
Change in local government spending power (horizontal axis) versus share of votes case for leave, upper-tier local authorities in England excluding London
So it seems that we can divide England up into two groups: “London-like” areas, which include most London boroughs and some other successful cities; and “unLondon”, which is everyone else. Many London-like areas have seen big cuts to local services and still voted remain. But when we look only at unLondon[iii], we see a different pattern: areas with bigger cuts to local services cast a greater proportion of votes for leave.
On the basis of this, it seems quite plausible[iv] that austerity was one of the drivers of the Brexit vote – but this effect was mediated by cuts to local services, rather than stagnating incomes.
Change in local government spending power (horizontal axis) versus share of votes case for leave, upper-tier local authorities in unLondon
[i] Calculating trends in council funding is tricky, because responsibilities of councils change year-to-year. When responsibilities are added, extra money might be attached to them but this doesn’t ease the pressure on other services. Luckily, the Department for Communities and Local Government publishes “spending power” estimates which (for any two adjacent years) try to take account of these changes. By cumulating the year-on-year changes, and adjusting for inflation, we can get a reasonable estimate of the changes over time in funding for local services.
[ii] The data are for upper-tier authorities. For two-tier areas (the shire counties) the spending power of the districts within each county has been included to make the figures comparable with unitary authorities.
[iii] For the purposes of this analysis, only Liverpool, Manchester, Brighton and Bristol have been excluded from unLondon, since they are the most obvious outliers.
[iv] There are two important caveats here. First, to believe in this correlation, you have to believe that the London/unLondon split makes sense and isn’t just a convenient choice to generate a spurious correlation. For me, the story works, but you will make up your own mind. Second, this analysis only looks at one variable, so it’s possible that the pattern is actually driven by something else, such as difference in average incomes. The Resolution Foundation’s work deals with this problem by including a wide range of variables – but nothing on cuts to local services. I’d like to see them add this to their analysis.