Where do Labour Voters Stand on Foreign Policy?
Nearly nine years on from the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, protests are once again gripping several Arab countries.
In the aftermath of the 2016 Referendum, discussions around the UK’s international strategy have necessarily tended to coalesce around the governing Conservative Party, and its ambition for a ‘truly Global Britain’. It still remains unclear how the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s administration would tackle some of the major issues of the day – including our membership of multilateral organisations such as NATO, the future of the ‘special relationship’ with the United States, and the maintenance of our defence capabilities.
Earlier this year, we published a report exploring the nature of public opinion on the UK’s role in the world. Revisiting the full data-set from the 2019 survey provides some fascinating insights into the differences in British public opinion by past and anticipated voting behaviour.
1. Labour voters are less interested in and knowledgeable about foreign affairs than Conservatives.
Overall, 73% of Labour voters describe themselves as interested in foreign affairs, compared to 77% of Conservative voters. On knowledge, only 46% of Labour voters consider themselves informed, compared to 59% of Conservative voters – a 13 percentage point difference.
2. Labour voters are more likely than Conservatives to call for higher government investment.
32% of Labour voters believe we should increase spending on foreign affairs, and 16% believe we should spend less. By contrast, less than a quarter of Conservative voters (24%) believe we should spend more, while 31% believe we should spend less.
3. Labour voters spread their interest across a wider range of issues.
Labour voters have a considerably larger stake in issues such as climate change (50% vs 27% of Conservatives), humanitarian crises (28% vs 9%), and global wars such as Syria (23% vs 10%). The areas where they differ most from the country as a whole are reduced interest in immigration and out-sized interest in climate change and humanitarian crises.
4. Labour voters are twice as likely to want a non-interventionist UK.
When asked how they would like the UK to position itself, only 11% of Labour voters want to be seen as a nation that intervenes in global conflicts, while twice as many would specifically prefer not to be seen as interventionist.
5. The EU is the only institution Labour voters support more than Conservatives.
For every other organisation – most clearly NATO and the Commonwealth – it is Conservative voters who are more likely to emphatically favour retained membership, capturing Labour voters’ relative caution around defence and interventionism.
6. Labour voters are more evenly split on interests versus values.
43% of Labour voters would prefer our international engagement to be driven by an equal balance of economic and strategic interests and our values. By contrast, a majority (53%) of Conservative voters are clear that economic and strategic interests should be the primary goal.
Conclusions
Foreign affairs are one of the most malleable areas of public opinion. The Labour Party’s governing apparatus and its membership are clearly moving away from the bipartisan status quo, and this data suggests there is some fertile ground for a stronger groundswell of support for this new direction amongst their voters too – even as a solid foundation of support remains for ‘the way things were’.
Survey sample: 1,514 British adults aged 18+. Fieldwork conducted online by BMG Research between 8–11 January 2019. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the BFPG.