“The truth is that when you look at those who voted to remain, most of them were the better educated people in our country”
That’s what the Labour MP for Huddersfield, Barry Sheerman, told a BBC interviewer this week, prompting an angry response from some leave supporters on social media.
FactCheck looks at whether he’s right.
What were the main features of remain and leave voters?
In its analysis immediately after the referendum result, pollsters YouGov said: “The most dramatic split [between voters] is along the lines of education.
“70 per cent of voters whose educational attainment is only GCSE or lower voted to Leave, while 68 per cent of voters with a university degree voted to Remain in the EU. Those with A levels and no degree were evenly split”.
But they also cited age as “the other great fault line” – with people aged under 25 more than twice as likely to vote remain than leave (71 per cent versus 29 per cent). The reverse is true among older people, with 64 per cent of over-65s voting to leave.
Overall, YouGov concluded that “older people with fewer formal qualifications were most likely to have voted Leave”.
But is it really education that makes the difference between remainers and leavers?
Some commentators have questioned whether the relationship between education and voting to remain is as clear as it first appears.
The number of people in higher education has gone up significantly in recent decades, as this graph from the House of Commons Library shows.
According to research by the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, participation in higher education increased from 3.4 per cent in 1950, to 8.4 per cent in 1970, to 19.3 per cent in 2000.
This means that today’s over-65s are much less likely to have a degree than today’s under-25s.
Education was a bigger factor than age in determining how people voted
So when we say that graduates are more likely to vote remain, are we actually saying that younger people are more likely to vote remain?
No, says Paula Surridge, senior lecturer in the department of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol.
She told FactCheck: “There is strong evidence that education levels are connected with referendum voting, with those with degree level qualifications being much more pro-remain.”
But she was clear that “this is not explained by age – the education effect is stronger”. She says that “even within generations, the more highly qualified you are, the more likely you are to support remain”.
She pointed us to this data, which shows that people with lower levels of education were more likely to vote to leave the EU than people of the same age with higher levels of education.
FactCheck verdict
Barry Sheerman is right: better educated people are more likely to have voted remain in last year’s EU referendum.
It is true that age also played a part, with older people more likely to vote to leave and younger people more likely to vote to remain.
However, analysis of voting behaviour shows that education was a more significant factor. Even among people of the same age, those with more qualifications were much more likely to vote to remain than those with few qualifications or none.
maybe the better educated (wealthier) thought they had more to lose by leaving EU
Or haven’t lost anything by being in the EU?
C4 is so full of pro eu bias… insulting people because of their opposing political standpoint will win C4 no favours. I have not watched it for a couple of years now and have missed nothing of theirs. I like to make my own mind up rather than be spooned their opinions and follow them like sheep. Some people don’t have the brains or strength of character for that. TV is for sheep
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So what? This is the same tired old accusation that Remainers have been throwing at us. He might as well say middle class voters were more ;likely to to vote Remain. Its just a polite way of saying Leavers are stupid are therefore their vote should be ignored. This is an age old excuse for denying people of the right to vote. If we allowed conservatives like Sheerman to get away with it the working class would never have got the vote.
Two important factors have been omitted:
Bribery and indoctrination.
Incontrovertible proof!
People who voted “leave” are thick!
Do you know the meaning of the word ‘incontrovertible’ or were you being sarcastic ?
After reading this article I was not surprised that they came to these conclusions. This is typical of people who have a point to prove and they will incorporate statistics which will support their argument. ( Keep in mind that there are Lies. Damn Lies and Statistics.)
Paula Surridge would of course promote education as that is her job and livelihood and being a University Lecturer it is hard to imagine any other result especially as Universities receive substantial monetary support from the EU and therefore are contracted to support and praise the system.
When compiling a report based on statistics, Rule No 1 is to ignore anything which may damage your argument and this is exactly what has happened here. They have deliberately ignored, possibly, the most valuable qualification which NO University can or will be able to teach and that is “EXPERIENCE”.
Young students tend to believe most, if not all, the Political Brainwashing they have been subjected
to, possibly since Primary School. (More and more reports of this are surfacing daily) Only later, as they grow up do they realise that they have been frequently lied to. For those who start thinking for themselves after they experience life reach the “Earth Shattering” realisation that they have been LIED to all of their life and the world is actually totally different.
Education, has by this time very little to do with the decisions they make and the way they vote but Experience definitely does and the older generation have learned this.
In the workplace some of the most dangerous are the newly qualified as they think that they know all the answers but in fact without experience they so often don’t have all the facts but they still proceed in their arrogance.
Well said – couldn’t have put it better myself.
Rubbish -does he think that attending university makes you better educated? If so he is right because our students have been brainwashed by our universities over the last 40 years into the zombie EU loving snowflakes most of them have become. We all know the snowflakes are the ones attending universities and therefore the brainwashed ones and those more likely to vote remain. The rest of us have commonsense and can see through the EU. Education is no substitute for commonsense. It doesn’t replace intelligence. I have an IQ of 159 – didn’t go to university due to financial restraints and voted LEAVE.
You elites still don’t get it do you?
The people with most to lose are semi-skilled workers; taxi/bus drivers, care workers, construction workers, hairdressers. They’d normally get above minimum wage, but as EU workers can be shipped in and work for less, and ship child benefit back at thee times their home rate, that’s what happens.
What are they to do? Tug their forelock and defer to greater education? Or vote in their own interests? And if the elites exploit too many EU workers and drive down wages of too many UK workers, this is the result you get.
You only have to annoy 52% of the people and this is the result you get. So it appears.
It would make sense that less educated people would vote leave, as these are exactly the people who are in competition with Low skilled immigrants for jobs, causing their wages to decrease. If the issue was unfettered immigration for graduates from English speaking countries we would likely see the opposite.
A general observation is that the better educated you are, the more likely you are to be in a better paid job. This then enables you to live in a more affluent area. Living in a more affluent area thus Shields you from many of the social issues/problems that being in EU has created. As an example I don’t suppose many middle class areas experienced an influx of non English speaking children flooding their child’s primary school. But how many middle class areas have taken on a cleaner (almost certainly non English) in affluent areas compared to non affluent areas. Most people have voted how they have been affected by EU membership and quite clearly this is a straight forward they have or they haven’t!
As an older and educated person my experience taught me that you can’t put the clock back and that the world has changed immeasurably since Britain first joined the EU. That’s why I voted to remain.
Maybe you shoud all look at the graphs in figure 2, which speak for themselves, without any need for bias. Apart from the pre-war 72+ age group there is a very consistent pattern showing the more education the person has recieved, the more likely they are to vote remain. I myself an in the baby boomer category, so far from a naive youngster, and I did my degree as a mature student. Incidentally, the article and figures are looking purely at education levels, not IQ. You can have a very intelligent person, who lacks education, and a much less intelligent person who has more education. My interpretation would be that the more educated are able to weigh up the arguments for themselves and are less likely to be taken in by false arguments. It is also the poor that have more to lose than the rich.
Sometimes the lessor educated people see things that those in their ivory towers and gated communities don’t. They might see a neighbor who goes without a job, while an immigrant comes in to take a job for a low wage, and lives in conditions that he or she considers intolerable. If I say, I don’t want to live like that to compete, it’s a sign of good sense and intelligence and concern for their families. It’s not a sign of ignorance. One can be ignorant of Des Cartes’ ideas, but conscious of what is happening to their lives.