Electoral maps reveal that Britain is just another European country
By J.C.
IN MY post on the European election result I noted that for all the talk of Britain lurching away from the continent, the country’s politics are typically European. After writing it I came across couple of fascinating maps in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant that tell the story in greater detail. They are reproduced here with the permission of their creator, Josse de Voogd, an electoral geographer based in Nijmegen. The above map shows the hue of the dominant political force in different regions of Europe. The one below shows where right-wing populists are strongest in north-west Europe.
Mr de Voogd explains how he drew them up:
The left/right/regionalist map is based on various elections. The right-wing populist map, as far as possible, is based on the results of the recent European elections. It shows where these populist parties do better than average in the countries concerned and where their most important strongholds are. Both maps are rough approximations. They cover some countries in much greater detail than others and there are lots of political parties that are difficult to place ideologically. The information comes from a wide range of resources over a long time-span. This is one of various useful websites that brings together this kind of data.
The maps, then, offer only a rough picture of the ideological proclivities of Europe's cities and regions. Still, they provide an intriguing and, as far as I can tell, broadly accurate sketch of the continent's political make-up. They throw up a series of observations as relevant to Britain as they are to other parts of Europe.
The metropolis is another country
London has more in common with other large European cities than it does with other parts of Britain. Like Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna, Geneva and Amsterdam it is an island of left-wing dominance, with below-average support for populism, in an otherwise right-wing area.
Flat areas are more right wing
The flat pains of southern Sweden, East Anglia, north-eastern France, Flanders and Padania vote for right-wing populists. Hilly regions like Cumbria, south-west France and most of the Alps tend to stick with the mainstream parties. This observation is not as facetious as it may seem. According to Garry Tregidga, an historian at Exeter University, hilly pastoral areas are generally characterised by left-leaning politics. One debatable explanation is that flat crop-growing areas benefit most from economies of scale, so fathers traditionally passed on their land to the first born, reinforcing differences in wealth and creating a more hierarchical political culture. In hilly, pastoral areas inheritances were more commonly split equally, which over the generations created a more egalitarian social structure and political tradition. Another (equally debatable) explanation is that arable farms need cheap vegetable-pickers and that the consequent foreign immigration into otherwise homogeneous rural areas stokes right-wing sentiment.
Populism is envy
In Britain, as in other countries, the appeal of right-wing populism begins on the outskirts of the booming metropolis. It seems that being just beyond (but not out of sight of) the bright lights of the cities boosts the support for anti-metropolitan parties in an area. London’s north-eastern commuter belt votes UKIP; the Front National wins votes in the Paris outer suburbs; in Italy support for the Lega Nord curls tightly around Milan; the Danish People’s Party—dead in central Copenhagen—thrives in its outskirts.
Traditions die hard
European social democracy is in a bad way. A minority of governments are left-leaning and the centre-left did worse than the centre-right last week. The remaining red blotches coincide with the traditional strongholds of the worker’s movement and the post-Marxist political left: the major centres of heavy industry and/or intellectual non-conformity. London and Lancashire, Berlin and the Ruhr, the Belgian pays noire coal belt, Andalucia and Catalonia (where leftist sympathies date back to the Spanish Civil War) and the cintura rossa of central Italy—the same areas were bastions of the left 80 years ago and beyond.
These observations serve to remind us that Britain’s political make-up is firmly rooted in its recognisably continental history and character—and that debates about whether Britons should be “part of Europe” are rather silly. They are, like it or not. Whether they choose to embrace that fact is, of course, another matter.
