In Meet Britain’s radical New Right Will Lloyd experienced/endured the Reasoned Student Summit in — where else? — London. His coverage of the event makes for depressing reading for anyone concerned with the future of British conservatism. He describes angry young men — for they do all seem to be men — eager for a hard-edged, nasty and nativist form of politics.
Is this the future of Conservative politics? As a post-young Tory, I certainly hope not. The Conservative Party has enough problems already without importing some of the worst conspiratorial elements of the American alt-right. And yet there’s a strong sense among the attendees that they’re on the right side of history, and that theirs is the only ‘true’ conservatism.
What do actual young Conservative voters think? As Will points out, 19% of 18- to 24-year-olds voted Tory in 2019, so they’re a significant part of the Tory electoral coalition, but we often forget them when we talk about the yoof vote, which is treated as either hardcore lefties or apathetic non-voters. So, are the views espoused at the Reasoned Student Summit reflective of young Tories as a whole?
As is my wont, I’ve used the wonderful British Election Study to explore the placement of young Tories relative to Tory voters in other age groups, and relative to other 18-25 year old voters. (Warning: there are graphs.)
For all these charts, the x axis represents the British Election Study waves (the intervals between each wave are not uniform, but we don’t really need to worry about that). The bold peach-red line is 18-25 year old Tories at the time of the given wave. The dashed line is 18-25 year old non-Tories.
The broad thrust of the Summit was the prioritisation of the cultural, so let’s start there. The BES has a handy libertarian-authoritarian scale, running from 0 (libertarian) to 10 (authoritarian), generated via the extent to which a respondent agrees with the following statements:
Young people today don’t have enough respect for traditional British values;
For some crimes, the death penalty is the most appropriate sentence;
Schools should teach children to obey authority;
Censorship of films and magazines is necessary to uphold moral standards;
People who break the law should be given stiffer sentences.
Compared to other age cohorts, we see that young Tory voters are actually less authoritarian than their older comrades, although they are more authoritarian than their cohort as a whole, which is not a surprise. This obviously doesn’t align with the views expressed at the Reasoned Student Summit, and provides fairly clear evidence that young Tory voters probably won’t be buying what these guys are selling.
We can also explore views on equality. The BES asks respondents whether they think attempts to give equal opportunities to different groups have gone too far or not far enough in Britain. Higher scores mean a respondent thinks it has gone too far, and ranges from 1 to 5.
Again, we see clear evidence of a broadly socially-liberal vibe to young Tory voters. For ethnic minorities and gays and lesbians, young Tories are less likely to think attempts to give equal opportinies have gone too far than their older co-voters (although again they’re less liberal on this than the 18-25 cohort as a whole), and for equal opportunities for women there is no real difference among the cohorts.
So, young Tories are not very authoritarian nor do they think equality measures have got out of control. What about immigration? The BES asks whether respondents think immigration is good or bad for the the British economy, and whether immigration has undermined or enriched Britain’s cultural life. This ranges from 1 to 7, with 7 representing a more positive view.
When it comes to the cultural impact of immigration young Tories are almost exactly on the middle of the spectrum. They are slightly more positive about the economic impact of immigration compared to the cultural, and in both cases are more positive than other Tory age cohorts. It bears repeating - this is a far cry from the views espoused by Farage, or by some of the people quoted in the article. Young Tory voters are not hard-line anti-immigrationists, and their position is probably much more nuanced than those expressed at the Reasoned Student Summit.
Now onto my favourite one: the populism scale. This is generated by the extent to which one agrees with the following statements:
The politicians in the UK Parliament need to follow the will of the people;
The people, and not politicians, should make our most important policy decisions;
I would rather be represented by a citizen than by a specialized politician;
Elected officials talk too much and take too little action;
What people call “compromise” in politics is really just selling out on one’s principles.
We see the same pattern as in previous graphs, namely that young Tory voters are less likely to hold populist values than the other cohorts of Tory voters. Interestingly, however, the 18-25 Tory cohort are generally less populist than non-Tory young voters. Regardless, this is one further blow to the idea that young Tories vibe with the populist radical right ideas espoused by Farage.
In the article, Will notes how the Summit attendees were less fussed about the economic compared to the cutural, but we’re here now so we may as well look at the left-right scale too. It is your classic 0-10 scale, with 0 being left wing and 10 being right wing and is based on responses to the following statements:
Government should redistribute income from the better off to those who are less well off;
Big business takes advantage of ordinary people;
Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth;
There is one law for the rich and one for the poor;
Management will always try to get the better of employees if it gets the chance.
Interestingly, whilst there is generally little variation among Tories from all other age cohorts on the left-right scale, young Tories stand out as more economically right-wing than Tory voters from all other age groups, consistently by about half a point. Even here though, on a scale running from 0-10 it is interesting that all age cohorts of Tories end up on the left-hand side of the left-right spectrum — the Tory Party was never going to deliver Singapore-on-Thames, simply because the British public, and even Tory voters, don’t want it.
Not that it matters — the Reasoned Student Summit was essentially a Farage love-in not because people agree with his libertarian economic policy, but because people are willing to ignore that to hear Farage bash the EU, Theresa May, and Remainers. These young Tories are not there for his libertarian economic policy: they’re there for his populist cultural hot takes. It is telling that Dan Hannan, with his standard libertarian speel, had a poor reception.
Things get even more interesting (yes, we’re living dangerously today) if we ask people to place themselves on the left-right spectrum. Two patterns emerge. Firstly, the difference between young Tories and the other age cohorts disappears. Secondly, all respondents place themselves much further to the right than they were placed based off the battery of statements above.
What does this mean? Tories may self-ID as economically right-wing, but their values don’t necessarily align with this. For the Conservative Party, this means that what your voters want to hear might not be the same as what they actually want you to do — good luck with that, Hunt.
Finally, apropos of nothing, sexuality. Here sexuality has been coded as 1 for heterosexual, and 2 for not heterosexual. While we see that young voters as a whole have become less straight over time, the number of young Tory voters identifying as not straight remains quite (strong and) stable. I don’t really have any takeaway points from this one, I just thought it was interesting.
So, what can we get from this exercise? It seems fairly clear that the flavour of Conservatism espoused at the Reasoned Student Summit is not reflective of young Tory voters as a whole. Will’s piece paints a sad picture, giving a sense that young Tories are just angry at the world, paranoid and downbeat. They think the country is going to hell in a handcart. But just as Twitter isn’t the real world, the Reasoned Student Summit isn’t reflective of the Conservative Party voter base.
Instead of being nativist identitarians railing against woke ideology, young Tories are less authoritarian, less populist, more comfortable with attempts at ensuring equality and more pro-immigration than their older co-voters. It is less Reasoned, and more reasonable.
Oh, and they’re less likely to like Farage.