The realignment is OVER. 10 KEY messages from the 2024 UK election

A data dump on what we're learning since the election

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Peter Brookes/The Times

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Nearly a decade ago, I pointed to a unique opportunity for the British Tories to completely reshape, or ‘realign’, their electorate. By tapping into very same currents that had powered the rise of Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party during 2010-2015, and then the Brexit vote, in 2016, I argued that the post-Brexit Tories could assemble an entirely new coalition. They could expand their reach among working-class, non-graduate, older, and pro-Brexit voters which would, in turn, bring them a much more ‘geographically effective’ coalition, repositioning them in the small and medium towns, the Red Wall and industrial heartlands, and coastal communities.

And this is exactly what happened. While the unfolding political realignment was already visible with the Brexit vote, in 2016, and the 2017 general election, when Theresa May failed to win her majority, it found its full expression two years later when it delivered Boris Johnson’s 80 seat majority, putting the Conservative Party on a more stable and solid foundation. Popular in the north, not just the south. Popular among the working-class, not just the professional middle-class. Popular among people without degrees, not just people with degrees. And popular among voters who are spread across the country, who are not just concentrated in the country’s big cities, university towns, and true-blue Tory enclaves in the south-east.

But today, as I can now show you, the realignment is well and truly over. It’s been blown apart. And in the ruins that are left the Tories can see just how challenging the future will be. Here are 10 key messages, all anchored in the latest data, about what happened at the 2024 UK election —messages that will have a profound influence on the direction of the party, its looming leadership election, the evolution of not just the Tories but also Labour and Reform, and the future of our country.

1.  The Tories LOST the working-class

Lord Ashcroft Post-Election Poll

It was the realignment that allowed the Tories, after Brexit, to make major inroads among the working-class —especially skilled ‘C2’ workers like mechanics, electricians, and factory workers who supported Brexit, loathe mass immigration, and are suspicious about Labour and the left. But while Boris Johnson and the Tories, in 2019, won over more than half these voters, this year they only won about one in four of them, with Nigel Farage and Reform now making major inroads and winning nearly as many. Indeed, across Europe the skilled working-class is routinely the most strongly supportive of national populists. The Tories, in other words, are back to being a party that is most successful among the economically secure middle-class, having lost the earlier, unique opening among the working-class. This does not bode well for the party’s future, given Labour’s and also the Lib Dem’s and Green’s appeal to middle-class graduate liberals and, at the other end of the spectrum, Nigel Farage’s strong appeal to the working-class. This competition for working-class votes will be a major point of debate among the looming battle for the future of the British Right.

2.  The Tories are an even OLDER party

As the realignment gave way, the Tories lost support across the board, among all age groups. While the young continue to drift leftwards, whether to Labour, the Lib Dems, or the Greens, the Tories disproportionately lost support among the middle-aged while also being hit by Reform among the over-50s. Because of this, the Tory electorate has become even older. As Focaldata point out, while the crossover age at which somebody becomes more likely to vote Tory than Labour was 42 years old in 2019, it is now much higher, at 64. This too will be a major point in the debate about the future of the British Right because unless the Tories can reinvent and renew their message for younger voters then the future does indeed look rather bleak.

3.  The Tories LOST non-graduates

One of the really interesting things in 2019 was that the Tories made enormous strides among people without degrees. Combined with talk of ‘levelling-up’ left behind regions, this introduced a major opening for the Tories –to be a party committed to developing technical, vocational education, to speak for the non-graduate majority and point out that too many things in our country reflect the values and the voice of the elite graduate minority. But this is no longer true. Last week, one of the sharpest drops in support for the Tories was among people without degrees. It crashed by nearly 30-points while support for Reform jumped by 15-points and Labour 5-points. The Tories also lost ground among degree-holders, though not as much. So now, while they will have to compete with Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens for votes from the graduate class they will also have to compete with Labour and Reform for votes among the non-graduate majority. This too will mark a fundamental break from 2019 when Brexit and immigration essentially allowed the Tories to dominate among these voters while Farage and the Brexit Party stood down in Tory seats.

4.  The Brexit Coalition IMPLODED

The realignment was durable because it married the Tory party with Brexit voters who held a distinctive cluster of views. They not only wanted to exit the EU but lower mass immigration, slow the pace of change, and reassert the voice of the forgotten majority. One massive reason why Boris Johnson and the Tories became so formidable in 2019 is precisely because they rebuilt their party around three-quarters of Brexit voters. The Tory electorate essentially became the Leave electorate. And that made it geographically efficient, too, with Leave voters distributed around the country more effectively in a first-past-the-post-system than Remain voters. But no more. Last week, the Brexit electorate imploded with the Tories now only holding around one-third of these voters, just under a third breaking off to Farage and Reform, and Labour taking a big chunk, too. Focaldata also find that, compared to 2019, the Tories slumped by a staggering 42 points (!) among 2016 Leave voters but stayed static among Remainers.

And here are another six key messages …