British Election Research Articles

Is Digital News Really that Digital? An Analysis of How Online News Sites in the UK use Digital Affordances to Enhance Their Reporting

ABSTRACT Legacy media have responded to the introduction of digital-born news sites by instigating their own online platforms, reflecting the extent to which journalism operates within a hybrid media environment. This article aims to test if and how digital journalism makes its hybridity manifest by using various online affordances. We used content analysis to compare the extent to which BBC News, Mail Online, The Guardian, Buzzfeed and Huffington Post exploit video, hyperlinks, and Twitter posts to better inform citizens about politics during the 2017 UK election. We found that online news sites did not use video extensively. Hyperlinks were frequently used. Digital-born news sites linked more widely than their public service and commercial legacy counterparts who, in contrast, used more internal links. Digital-born sites used more embedded tweets than legacy sites. We also found that online news preferred to link to journalistic content and tweets than, say, official government or other expert sources. These findings show the hybridity of online news in the UK because both public service and commercial legacy media adopt some online practices but reject others, just as digital-born sites blend traditional journalism with digital tools to produce new ways of supporting their journalism.

‘Get Brexit Done’: The New Political Divides of England and Wales at the 2019 Election

AbstractThis article analyses the successful Conservative election campaign of 2019 and how it took advantage of a fractured political and economic landscape. It reviews the unique circumstances around the 2019 election and the ‘surprising death’ of a no‐deal Brexit. We then analyse the divergent political communication strategies in the 2017 and 2019 Conservative campaigns showing how the latter was much more coherent and politically unorthodox. Drawing on socioeconomic, demographic and British Election Study data, we argue that Boris Johnson’s messaging was carefully tailored towards the demands of voters in the ‘red wall’ seats. Conservative success was built around an appeal to voters in these economically depressed ‘geographies of discontent’. But while tremendously successful, the coalition this created is potentially fragile. An unconventional, ‘leftish’ Conservative campaign built a new, diverse bloc of voters. It includes a number of left‐wingers expecting change alongside traditional Conservative supporters, and will be hard to keep together given the economic turbulence ahead.

Hurdles and Pathways to Regulatory Innovation in Digital Political Campaigning

AbstractTargeted online ads, algorithmic analytics tools, clickbait‐y social media campaigns, big data voter databases—digital technologies have become a cornerstone of contemporary political campaigns in the United Kingdom. Candidates, party campaigners, and a multitude of other registered campaigners embrace digital campaigning for democratic engagement, mobilising voters and electioneering. Yet, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it has become clear that these technologies are vulnerable to abuse and deception. Pressing issues surrounding privacy, transparency, and human rights persist, and systems of electoral law have become ill‐equipped to enforce good behaviour and compliance with the law. Drawing from empirical evidence ahead of the 2019 UK general election, this article examines systemic obstacles to regulatory innovation. The inquiry provides an analysis of key policy challenges affecting elections and democracy, and develops an analytical framework pathways to regulatory innovation in the digital domain across three dimensions: (1) Institutional structures; (2) organisational processes; and (3) regulatory functions. The article puts forward practical policy recommendations to promote regulatory innovation that is tech‐savvy, evidence‐based and future‐proof.

Judeophobic Antisemitism among British Voters, 2016-2020

Through secondary analysis of survey data collected by YouGov for Campaign Against Antisemitism, this research note provides a longitudinal account of changes in Judeophobic antisemitism (that is, antisemitism articulated in relation to Jews identified as Jews) in mainland Britain from 2016-2020. Because survey responses are aggregated by most recent general election vote, the dataset facilitates comparison between those who voted for each of Britain’s three main parties in the 2015, 2017, and 2019 UK general elections. (Those who voted for other parties, as well as those who did not vote and those for whom voting data are missing, are aggregated as a fourth category.) Amongst those who voted for the centrist Liberal Democrat party, levels of Judeophobic antisemitism declined throughout the period. Amongst those who voted for the left-wing Labour Party, levels of Judeophobic antisemitism began at a low level, rose to a peak in 2018, and then declined, returning to something close to their 2016 level by 2020. Changes amongst other voter groups were less clear-cut, although all voter groups saw a decline in Judeophobic antisemitism from 2019 to 2020. Although it is beyond the scope of this article to analyze trends in antizionist antisemitism (that is, antisemitism articulated in relation to Israel and its supporters), comparative figures for that form of antisemitism are provided for the years 2019–2020.

Judeophobic Antisemitism among British Voters, 2016-2020

Through secondary analysis of survey data collected by YouGov for Campaign Against Antisemitism, this research note provides a longitudinal account of changes in Judeophobic antisemitism (that is, antisemitism articulated in relation to Jews identified as Jews) in mainland Britain from 2016-2020. Because survey responses are aggregated by most recent general election vote, the dataset facilitates comparison between those who voted for each of Britain’s three main parties in the 2015, 2017, and 2019 UK general elections. (Those who voted for other parties, as well as those who did not vote and those for whom voting data are missing, are aggregated as a fourth category.) Amongst those who voted for the centrist Liberal Democrat party, levels of Judeophobic antisemitism declined throughout the period. Amongst those who voted for the left-wing Labour Party, levels of Judeophobic antisemitism began at a low level, rose to a peak in 2018, and then declined, returning to something close to their 2016 level by 2020. Changes amongst other voter groups were less clear-cut, although all voter groups saw a decline in Judeophobic antisemitism from 2019 to 2020. Although it is beyond the scope of this article to analyze trends in antizionist antisemitism (that is, antisemitism articulated in relation to Israel and its supporters), comparative figures for that form of antisemitism are provided for the years 2019–2020.

A Vote of Frustration? Young Voters in the UK General Election 2019

A Vote of Frustration? Young Voters in the UK General Election 2019

Tribes and Turbulence: The 2019 UK General Election in Scotland

Tribes and Turbulence: The 2019 UK General Election in Scotland

How Niche Parties React to Losing Their Niche: The Cases of the Brexit Party, the Green Party and Change UK

This contribution considers how niche parties react when they lose their niche, using the cases of three parties in the turbulent period prior to the 2019 UK general election: the Brexit Party, the ...

The Regulation of Third Party Campaigning in UK Elections

AbstractThis article looks at the regulation of third parties in UK election law. During the 2019 general election campaign, media reports noted an increase in non‐party organisations spending money on electoral advertisements on social media. Such advertisements raised a number of ethical questions, related to spending, transparency, and the content of the messages. Despite such recent concerns, third party electoral activity in the UK is not new, and the existing legal framework regulates campaign spending. That framework has its roots in Victorian‐era election law and has been periodically updated. This article will look at the challenges in designing laws to regulate third party electoral activity, as a difficult line has to be drawn to ensure the laws are effective, while at the same time not imposing too many burdens on independent political activity. Moreover, the move to digital campaigning poses some further challenges, such as monitoring compliance by third party campaigners. While there are no simple solutions to some of the issues raised by third party electoral activity, this article will note some of the measures that could at least improve the transparency of such campaigning.

Conceptual Vandalism, Historical Distortion: The Labour Antisemitism Crisis and the Limits of Class Instrumentalism

This article analyses the British left’s response to allegations of antisemitism within the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. It uses as its foil a collection of essays on the topic written over the course of the Corbyn era for leading online outlets of the contemporary Anglo-American left, and given away as a free e-book by Verso, the world’s biggest leftist publisher, during the 2019 British election campaign. On the basis of this collection, the article suggests that the Labour antisemitism crisis was the culmination of a long process of political and theoretical degeneration within the left. It argues that the tendency to reduce of the question of antisemitism to that of class “interests,” with antisemitism understood primarily as an “instrument” used by the powerful to divide the “oppressed,” leaves many leftists unable to comprehend the possibility of exterminatory antisemitism as an end-in-itself. The appeal of this approach lies in the apparent alibi against antisemitism it provides for those on the left, like Corbyn, whose interests supposedly coincide with those of “the oppressed,” and means that accusations of antisemitism within the left can be similarly denounced as cover for the underlying ‘interests’ of those making the accusation. The article argues that the insistence that the State of Israel is “a racist endeavour,” a claim which lay at the heart of the Labour antisemitism dispute, rests upon an arbitrary and ahistorical rejection of the notion of Jewish peoplehood. This critique itself draws upon a long history of right-nationalist and liberal-republican antisemitism in which Jews were viewed as an illegitimate “anti-nation,” and in its partiality is radically distinct from a critique of the nation-state as such. The article suggests that this same partiality and ahistoricity reappears in the inability of a class instrumentalist perspective to apprehend the intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, relationship between Israel and antisemitism, and the genocidal antisemitism of the Holocaust in particular.

Studying political disputes: A rhetorical perspective and a case study

This article argues that rhetorical analysis is a method particularly well-suited for the study of political disputes and introduces commonplaces as a tool to conduct such analysis. Commonplaces function as key reference points that produce and organise social meaning; they can thus help to clarify the terms of the dispute and illuminate how these are linked to broader debates within the political community. Commonplaces call into attention sedimented views and point to alternative norms of action pursued by agents of change and therefore to entry points for recontestation. The article substantiates this claim through a case study that maps arguments for climate action in party manifestos in the 2019 General Election in the United Kingdom. A rhetorical analysis of the material highlights the emergence of a number of insurgent commonplaces that seek to disturb the dominance of ‘economic growth’ as principle that informs climate action. Commonplaces can provide a more nuanced understanding of public debates, help to identify sedimented ideological views, and illuminate openings for recontestation and the pursuit of alternative socio-ecological arrangements.

Perceived Differentiation and Audience Support to Institutional Change in British Politics

Previous research suggests that insufficient differentiation of organizations occupying central positions in an organizational field increases the possibility of a status quo threatening institutional change. Directly testing the relationship, the present study reveals a more complex picture of the linkages between organizational differentiation and institutional change. Drawing on developments in British politics, our study demonstrates that when the differentiation dimension of left-right politics was on decline, perceived differentiation of the major parties, instead of decreasing, increased audience support to a status quo threatening- electoral institutional change from FPPS (First Past the Post System) to PR (Proportional Representation). We further observe in a counter-intuitive manner that the increase in audience support to the electoral institutional change from FPPS to PR, however, weakened with the passage of time. We use both qualitative and quantitative evidence from the context of British politics to support and test our theoretical arguments. In particular, we found support for our theoretical hypotheses in analyses of data from British Election Surveys during the period from 1987 to 2001, which enabled direct measurement of the perceived differentiation of the two central parties (i.e., the Conservatives and the Labour) in British politics along the differentiating dimension of left-right politics and the voter support for an electoral institutional change from FPPS to PR.

By any memes necessary? Small political acts, incidental exposure and memes during the 2017 UK general election

Following the 2017 UK general election, there was much debate about the so-called ‘youthquake’, or increase in youth turnout (YouGov). Some journalists claimed it was the ‘. . . memes wot won it’. This article seeks to understand the role of memes during political campaigns. Combining meta-data and content analysis, this article aims to answer three questions. First, who creates political memes? Second, what is the level of engagement with political memes and who engages with them? Finally, can any meaningful political information be derived from memes? The findings here suggest that by far the most common producers of memes were citizens suggesting that memes may be a form of citizen-initiated political participation. There was a high level of engagement with memes with almost half a million shares in our sample. However, the level of policy information in memes was low suggesting they are unlikely to increase political knowledge.

Which politicians receive abuse? Four factors illuminated in the UK general election 2019

The 2019 UK general election took place against a background of rising online hostility levels toward politicians, and concerns about the impact of this on democracy, as a record number of politicians cited the abuse they had been receiving as a reason for not standing for re-election. We present a four-factor framework in understanding who receives online abuse and why. The four factors are prominence, events, online engagement and personal characteristics. We collected 4.2 million tweets sent to or from election candidates in the six week period spanning from the start of November until shortly after the December 12th election. We found abuse in 4.46% of replies received by candidates, up from 3.27% in the matching period for the 2017 UK general election. Abuse levels have also been climbing month on month throughout 2019. Abuse also escalated throughout the campaign period. Abuse focused mainly on a small number of high profile politicians, with the most prominent individuals receiving not only more abuse by volume, but also as a percentage of replies. Abuse is “spiky”, triggered by external events such as debates, or certain tweets. Some tweets may become viral targets for personal abuse. On average, men received more general and political abuse; women received more sexist abuse. Conservative candidates received more political and general abuse. We find that individuals choosing not to stand for re-election had received more abuse across the preceding year.

Welsh Labour: From “Fantastic Results” in June 2017 to the “Crumbling of the Red Wall” in December 2019

In November 2019, the British Parliament finally agreed to decide the holding of general elections in the United Kingdom, only 18 months after the previous ones. If the Welsh Labour Party, chaired by a new leader, Mark Drakeford, since December 2018 and weakened by the May 2019 European Elections, managed to remain the dominant party in the country, it obtained its worst election results since 1935, which can be explained by its weak leadership and the confusing message sent to voters. Such results are a bad omen for the forthcoming Welsh Parliament election scheduled in May 2021.

Les Élections législatives de décembre 2019 au Royaume-Uni: quelques réflexions

The outcome of the UK General Election of December 2019 was a substantial victory for the Conservative party. Why did the Conservatives win, and win so well, when the party had been bitterly riven for over three years by deep disagreement about Brexit? This chapter analyses the reasons for that success and asks what this says about the politically unity of the United Kingdom. It argues that, beneath the surface of a decisive electoral outcome, the UK remains a country divided, demographically, socially and geographically. The future course of British politics remains uncertain.

The Role of Political Attention in Moderating the Association between Political Identities and Anthropogenic Climate Change Belief in Britain

US research shows that the partisan divide among elites on climate change has been mirrored by division at the citizen level, with this division being especially prominent among more politically engaged citizens. Using British Election Study data from 2016, this article examines whether a similar phenomenon is occurring in Britain, a country that experienced an increase in climate sceptic media coverage in the aftermath of the passing of the 2008 Climate Change Act. The results show that UK Independence Party and Conservative Party partisans as well as Leavers who pay more attention to politics are less likely to believe in the existence of anthropogenic climate change in contrast to Labour Party partisans and Remainers where increased political attention is associated with greater belief. These findings point to the inherent difficulties of bringing public beliefs on climate change in line with the scientific consensus in the presence of divided elite cues.

Criminal justice in an age of austerity: The London Bridge killings

In late November 2019, two weeks before the UK general election, a terrorist attack was carried out against attendees at a London rehabilitation conference involving released prisoners, killing two participants and seriously injuring others. The event and aftermath raise a number of issues including: the politicisation of the killings; responsibility for failings in a range of criminal justice processes; the effects of austerity policies on criminal justice; rehabilitation and the selective hailing of released prisoners among those citizens fighting back against the attacker as ‘heroes’.

Do as I Say or Do as I Do? How Social Relationships Shape the Impact of Descriptive and Injunctive Norms of Voting

AbstractSocial norms play an important role in our understanding of why people vote, yet very little is known about the relative importance of descriptive and injunctive norms for voter turnout or how normative influence is affected by the political and social relationship between citizens. Using political discussion network data from the British Election Study, this article examines the joint effect of descriptive and injunctive norms on turnout. It demonstrates that citizens follow the example of those closest to them (descriptive norms), especially their partner, but they also respond to social approval of voting from political discussants regardless of the nature of their relationship.

The end of the EU affair: the UK general election of 2019

The UK election of 12th December 2019 – the third election in five years and the second snap election in a row – returned a Conservative majority government led by Boris Johnson and the lowest number of Labour MPs since 1935. Three-and-a-half years after the 2016 referendum, the government finally had sufficient parliamentary support for Brexit, and at the end of January 2020 the UK left the European Union. The result of the election can largely be explained by the continuing importance of Brexit. The previous election, held in 2017, had seen an increase in party sorting along Brexit lines – Leavers had shifted towards the Conservatives, whilst Remainers shifted towards Labour. The 2019 election saw a continuation of that process on the Leave side, as the Conservatives continued to win over Leavers, but a slight reversal on the Remain side, with some Remainers abandoning Labour for more avowedly pro-EU parties such as the Liberal Democrats.