"Bremainers versus Brexiters: is it all about Immigration? Where did the New Political Cleavage in the UK come from and what does it mean for the Future of Party Politics in the UK"
Open Lectures Winter 2016/17
- Date: Dec 8, 2016
- Time: 02:15 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Maria Sobolewska (University of Manchester)
- Maria Sobolewska is a Senior Lecturer in Politics (Quantitative Methods) at the University of Manchester and a member of CoDE www.ethnicity.ac.uk. She completed her doctorate on the political attitudes and voting of ethnic minorities in Britain at the University of Oxford. She works on the political integration and representation of ethnic minorities in Britain, public perceptions of integration, and the production and framing of public opinion of British Muslims. She has been part of the team conducting the Ethnic Minority British Election Survey in 2010 and is currently part of the PATHWAYS project: a seven country study of the descriptive and substantive representation of immigrant-origin minorities headed by Prof Thomas Saalfeld, University of Bamberg.
- Location: MPI-MMG, Hermann-Föge-Weg 11, Göttingen
- Room: Library Hall
For more details please contact esser(at)mmg.mpg.de.
While the UK’s decision to leave the EU clearly hinged on the swell of anti-immigrant sentiment, this paper argues that the social divisions that enabled such successful political mobilisation of this sentiment run deeper. This paper will outline the changing social coalitions that form the core vote of the political parties in Britain and explore the role of the two party system in the making and remaking of these coalitions. We will explore the role that geography, education and social values play in this and how these relate to both UK’s growing ethnic diversity and changing class structure. It will also address the issue of the future: what opportunities and risks arise for the main parties and how are they placed to answer to them.