Conservative support among graduates is “at its lowest level in at least 45 years”, while higher education expansion means that by the 2030s alienating graduate voters will be “fatal to electoral prospects”, according to a new report.
A report on the educational divide in UK politics published by the Social Market Foundation and written by a group of academics led by Robert Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, also says that Labour must bridge a political gulf between graduates and school-leavers to win the next election.
The report finds that in the wake of the 2016 EU referendum, education “now has a stronger relationship with vote choice than most demographic or economic variables” and “only age divides are stronger”.
And the report – which analyses British Election Study Internet Panel (BESIP) data and National Census data showing levels of education across different constituencies, focused on England and Wales – stresses that higher education expansion is “transforming the electoral politics of the education divide”.
