Many would have you believe the working class is reactionary and right wing – but this research disproves that

There is an assumption in British politics that being poor makes you right wing. Polling that uses the Nation Readership Survey's definition of “working class” - skilled workers, unskilled workers, the precariously employed, pensioners and unemployed, the so-called “C2Des” - persistently reports this grouping's disproportionate support for Ukip and the Brexit Party, and preference for the Conservatives over Labour.

Indeed, something of a cottage industry, dubbed Blue Labour, has made a splash by arguing Labour has become more metropolitan and liberal, and therefore alienating "socially conservative" workers outside London and in the north.

These claims are challenged by research coming out of the Netherlands looking at the impact of job loss. Examining the opinions of 7,000 people between 2007 and 2016, the researchers found experiencing unemployment and job loss can lead to changes, and these changes tend toward the left. This cuts against the grain of received wisdom in the academic politics literature, which tends to stress one's socialisation early on in life as the source of values and ideas about the social world, and that deviation from them in the light of subsequent life experience is rare.

Noting that political parties in the Netherlands can be arranged in terms of left and right according to their policy platforms, and that voters tend to think about politics in these terms, the researchers found the leftward shift was modest - a grand total of 0.2 on a scale where the furthest left is one and the furthest right is 10.

Why the excitement about a tiny movement? Because not all outcomes are equal. If, for example, someone loses their job but is able to secure a new position after a brief period, then the consequences are negligible. But when the loss of a job proves disruptive, especially when someone has little in the way of resources to cushion the impact and this entails some hardship, moves leftward are much more pronounced.

Nevertheless, past experience of economic shocks have not mechanically ground out left wing insurgencies. The electoral performance of left and centre left parties in Western Europe following the 2008 crash attests to this. As the researchers note, "the ideological effects of job loss that we observe are not mirrored by an increased likelihood of voting for left-wing parties – at least not during our study window."

Reasons for this is that job loss and unemployment can jolt one's sense of self-security and lead to despondency and withdrawal from the social world, including politics. This suggests whatever leftism is "encouraged" by these experiences, it is closely tied up with cynicism and disempowerment. It is not necessarily mobilising.

Another interesting observation concerns those who moved right during the study. Indeed, what we have seen since 2008 is a rise of the right both here in Britain and Europe, with right wing parties and movements rising as challengers to the established centre right. Again, Ukip and the Brexit Party are examples of this. What is the relationship between job loss, a modest movement to the left, and electoral success on the non-establishment right?

The researchers argue it is not driven by the experience of unemployment and economic hardship. More significant is fear of rather than actual economic hardship. For instance, after Donald Trump's presidential election victory the US white working class were held responsible for this unexpected result.

However, in a 2017 study, a group of American researchers argued "cultural anxiety" about race and foreign influences was a key predictor of his support. While this is normally associated with being working class and poor, they found the better off were disproportionately more likely to have voted for Trump than the poor. In other words, being poor is not the same as being worried about being poor.

We can see similar patterns in the UK too. Poll after poll demonstrates relationships between age and party preferences, with older voters tending toward right wing parties. Perhaps it is the case the C2DE voters who flock to the right are mostly comprised of pensioners, producing a distorted picture of "working class" voter loyalties? And the reason they do so is because their limited earning power, fixed incomes, and whatever property they have acquired during their lifetimes tends toward a generalised fear of hardship.

In other words, there is evidence of a relationship between economic position and political attitudes. Those in a precarious and poor position tend to respond to politics that try addressing their position, hence why working class people tend to vote Labour in greater numbers than other parties. And those with property or well-paying jobs are concerned about keeping hold of their economic advantages, which is why they are likelier to respond to parties that whip up fear and promise to defend them. Which tend to be right and centre right parties.

It is these facts, much more than the dichotomy often constructed between liberal, multicultural city dwellers and the socially conservative “left behind”, that help us to explain our society’s extreme polarisation.