The majority of voters in England describe themselves as ‘angry’ or ‘fearful’ about British politics, according to new research co-published by the Centre on Constitutional Change.

The research is published in the report ‘The Shameful Conquest of England’, co-authored by Professor Ailsa Henderson from the University of Edinburgh and Professor Richard Wyn Jones from Cardiff University. 

The findings showed:

• 60% of voters in England say current politics makes them feel angry
• 55% say it makes them fearful, and
• 78% say it makes them frustrated
• 9% reported feeling hopeful
• 3% said it made them happy. 

The report details the attitudes of English voters to their own governance and their relationship to the other nations in the Union.  It was co-published by the University of Edinburgh’s Centre on Constitutional Change and Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre.

Reform voters are the angriest (82%) followed by Greens (72%), although there is a sense of frustration across the board, with Labour’s own supporters (80%) reporting high degrees of frustration, ahead of the Conservatives (77%) and tied with Liberal Democrats (80%) but still behind Greens (85%) and Reform voters (93%). 

Parenthood and Englishness are the two key identities for Reform and Conservative voters, with Labour, Green and Liberal Democrats more likely to prioritise identities around their age and generation. For no party did class identity make the top three. 

The report also finds that, although the process brought in under David Cameron in 2015 called EVEL (English Votes for English Laws) is dead as of 2021, the longstanding desire of English voters to have some kind of mechanism for excluding MPs from Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland voting on England-only legislation remains. Nearly two in three of all voters think this is the best model to legislate for England and it remains more popular than UK Labour’s preferred model of regionalising English governance, even among its own voters. 

Professor Henderson, a Professor of Political Science at SPS, said: "Almost 10 years after the Brexit referendum and after electing a new government last year, English politics is marked by continued grievance, frustration and anger rather than hope. Addressing the UK’s relationship with Europe remains a top priority, but it is former Remain voters or rejoiners who now list it as a top concern. Grievance with the union, and how England is governed, continues to suggest that the English feel their voice is not heard, their culture and identity not given the attention it deserves."

Find a copy of the full report and the underlying data here. 

You can also read Ailsa Henderson's accompanying blog piece exploring the attitudes of the English to their neighbours in the UK, the mechanics of the Union, the UK’s relationship to the EU, and the governance of their own nation.