Brexit realignment revisited – new paper featured in The Economist reveals shifting voter loyalties

A recently published paper, “The Brexit realignment amid electoral volatility: The role of party blocs in the 2024 General Election” sheds fresh light on the enduring impact of Brexit in British politics – and has recently been the source for an article on the UK front page of The Economist, and its main editorial.

The implications are important for the ongoing fragmentation and volatility in British politics, and for political parties trying to figure out how to appeal to different voters.

Authored by a team of political scientists including Jane Green, Professor of Political Science and British Politics at DPIR and Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College, this paper revisits the narrative of the 2016 EU referendum by examining how Brexit contributed to a realignment in British electoral behaviour. Prior to the referendum, two key trends were already underway: voters switching parties more frequently between elections, and the growth of smaller or third-party forces fragmenting the dominant two-party system.

What the paper argues is that Brexit didn’t merely reshape those trends – it intensified them in a way that reorganised the electorate. Supporters and opponents of Brexit came to align increasingly with specific demographic profiles, especially along lines of age and education – reinforcing new fault lines in the party system.

This was still true in 2024, despite even more volatility and record levels of fragmentation. The Brexit-driven sorting did not unravel, but was strongly in evidence in two distinct 'party blocs'. 

The Economist picked up this research and referenced it in this article: ‘The new battle for Britain’ in which they suggest Stevenage, a microcosm of England, reflects the shift from a two-party system to a more fragmented political landscape, with new parties challenging traditional dominance.