Voters and the British Political System in the Context of Brexit: the British Election Study 2019-2026

The British electorate has become more volatile in recent decades. This volatile environment has allowed recent political shocks and events to bring about a period of rapid and dramatic political change. In 2015 we witnessed fragmentation of party support with the collapse of the Liberal Democrats and the rise of smaller and newer parties such as UKIP, the Greens, and the SNP. In 2017, following the Brexit vote, this was reversed, with a surge in support for the Conservatives and Labour, with many voters choosing on the basis of their attitudes towards Europe and immigration. Whatever form Brexit eventually takes, it will have huge electoral consequences and the next five years are likely to see further shifts in the electoral landscape. The British Election Study will be designed to provide a deep and theoretically informed understanding of those changes. We are proposing a study that maximizes the understanding of the immediate electoral and political consequences of Brexit - both for academic and non-academic beneficiaries. Our proposed project will achieve this by collecting high quality survey data for the research community, a broad array of the most relevant and timely questions, and a clear dissemination and impact plan. We will also achieve this by carrying out a program of theoretically informed research linking long-term trends in electoral volatility and contemporary political events. The project will benefit from a high level of continuity with the 2014-2019 BES (and historical BES studies) in terms of methodological and theoretical approach and a substantial degree of innovation, keeping the BES at the forefront of national election studies globally. The BES will consist of two core components: a post-election cross-sectional nationally representative sample survey of citizens; and an internet panel. The content of these surveys will be organised around the themes of accountability, representation and support for the political system. The surveys will allow users to understand and demonstrate how these key areas of democracy are affected by Brexit. The study will be designed to allow investigation of geographical and social variation in representation, accountability and system support. By maximising the extent of comparability with past studies it will also make it possible to compare voter behaviour and attitudes across successive election studies. Similarly the BES will help researchers to understand the role of national context by ensuring comparability between Britain and other countries. The inter-election panel will provide a platform for analysing the drivers of individual-level change and will include questions designed by and for the user community. Users will be able to investigate the impact of the election campaign using our daily sample of voters. We will also make it possible to link data from other sources including other surveys. We will work with the Social Science One Consortium to enable researchers to link Facebook data to BES respondents anonymously and securely which will allow users to combine BES survey responses with behavioural social media data. We will set aside 15% of the Internet Panel as an Innovation Module (split into four parts). We will use this space for user-created modules that are relevant to both the users' research agendas and the wider user community. This survey space will also allow the BES team to trial new items and adapt items from other studies for comparability and relevance to ongoing debates in the literature. Our custom designed BES website will provide easy access to data and stories arising from the BES. A program of consultation, events and media engagement will ensure that the study enhances public awareness and understanding of electoral politics, and assist academic and non-academic researchers in their own work.