New YouGov polling finds that ex-Londoners are more likely to vote LAB even after they’ve left
NEW POLL – Been working with @election_data looking at how ex-Londoners (those that moved out of London in past 5 years ) voted in the last couple of elections. TLDR – They swung towards Labour https://t.co/aL2xQh8hLU pic.twitter.com/ru4hw0cvAS
— Chris Curtis (@chris__curtis) May 9, 2018
Moving out doesn’t make voters more inclined to the blues
We all know that London votes in a very different pattern for the rest of the country with a much higher proportion of residents backing the Labour Party. This new polling finds that this effect is something that doesn’t go away once they’ve moved out.
The split of those who have left the capital in the past 5 years is as shown in the chart. The data shows that those who left London between 6 and 20 years ago split 41% to 41% labour to Conservative. It is only when we get to those who lived in London more than 20 years ago that we find that the Tories have a have a lead – 52%-31%. Those who never lived in London split to the Tories with a 4% lead.
Of course some of this is age related. Those who lived in London 20+ years ago are likely in the older age segments which we know are more likely to vote for the blue team.
The data also shows that ex-Londoners are much more likely to have voted Remain. It is only those in the 20+ years away from the capital segment that we see leave ahead.
The polling is based on a sample of more than 26k so the crossed tabs have much smaller margins of error.
What could be politically interesting about this dynamic is that the trend of people moving out to find housing they can afford could impact on constituencies within commuter distance of London.