Many of these faultlines have been clear for several years now. The surge in Ukip support recorded in both the 2014 European parliament election and 2015 general election was concentrated among voters whom Matthew Goodwin and I labelled the “left-behind”: older, white, socially conservative voters in more economically marginal neighbourhoods. Such voters had turned against a political class they saw as dominated by socially liberal university graduates with values fundamentally opposed to theirs, on identity, Europe – and particularly immigration.
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While immigration was the lightning rod, the divides the Brexit vote has revealed run deeper and broader than a single issue. They reflect deep-seated differences in outlook and values, hopes and prospects, between graduates and school leavers, globalised cosmopolitans and localised nationalists, the old and the young, London and the provinces.
These divides have been building for decades, but were long latent because, before the emergence of Ukip, they lacked a political voice. Now the sheer magnitude of the fracture between the globalised middle class and the anxious majority is clear for all to see. The patterns of Brexit voting last week map almost perfectly on to the pattern of Ukip voting seen in the 2014 European parliament. The only difference was the numbers: on Thursday, the Ukip coalition ballooned to an overall majority. Those who have dictated the terms of politics to the “left-behind” for a generation suddenly found the tables had turned. The result was a massive shock to the citizens of London, Manchester and other cosmopolitan cities, who discovered that much of provincial England utterly rejects their Europhile worldview. It leaves both the Tories and Labour facing stark challenges. The divides in identity, values and outlook it reveals cut straight across class, income and geography.
