Lee Anderson’s recent defection to Reform UK was perceived by many Conservatives as symbolic of the fracture between their party and the voters it won for the first time in 2019. For some, the views represented by Anderson have become synonymous with working-class voters. But this mistaken characterisation of today’s working class is one of the many reasons that Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives look like they will lose the next general election.
Writing in the Telegraph, Tory MPs Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger argued that Anderson’s defection is “a sad indictment of the failure of our party to listen to the voters who propelled us to victory four years ago”. This analysis promises to lock in the Tories’ strategy of pushing further and further to the right on social and cultural issues, particularly on immigration, in the mistaken belief that this will mobilise Red Wall voters who they suppose are animated by cultural conservatism.
But the Tories have misunderstood and mischaracterised today’s working class and their 2019 vote. The vast majority of those who supported the Conservatives in more working-class areas were primarily motivated by economic concerns, and they have been failed by the Tories’ economic record and serial incompetence. Today’s working-class voters are much more diverse than outdated stereotypes suggest: people living on low to middle incomes, multi-ethnic, in towns and suburbs across the UK. Those who have borne the brunt of stagnant wages and rising prices.
