Voting leave and the death penalty

[nightandthelight]

Very interesting read from the BBC regarding the link between voting leave and support for the death penalty. Contradicts the idea that leave voters were the disenfranchised poor.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36803544

I am wondering how many posts it will take before another Leaver comes on to say well I don't agree with the death penalty, and expect that anecdotal 1-person anecdote to override the study's findings though

Well, there are actually two others on this thread, under.

So they would only need another 23,997 leave voters who are against the death penalty to challenge the findings of the research

I'm waiting................

Yeah, well, you can prove anything with facts can't you...

It is amazing what you can do with statistics

To be fair though I think that the leave voters only believe in the death penalty for remain voters who post arrogant, silly or nonsensical things (trying to somehow prove that the leave voters are idiots)

I believe that Boris Johnson will be heading up the Death by zip wire ministry for all remain voters, the zip wire will be from Beachy Head to Europe, anyone surviving the Sharks and jellyfish gets to live in the EU

There is a correlation, and a strong one. Make of it what you will, but it is there.

trying to somehow prove that the leave voters are idiots

Not sure about "somehow". The number of leave voters in this thread who don't understand the meaning of correlation is frightening.

This is just the study on "authoritarianism". Has been reported many times, including re. Donald Trump...

You can ask that of all pieces of research though, but you leavers don't like experts, or facts, or statistics.

There is obviously a correlation in the voters asked regarding the death penalty, now this won't be every voter but you can extrapolate the data to a wider group.

As I've said before the leave vote was achieved by pulling together disparate groups who were all voting for a range of reasons many of which were counter to other groups voting the same way.

Finding out data like this is relevant to the assessment of why people voted how they did.

Maki, the sample size was apparently over 24,000. There were questions not just about the death penalty, but about attitudes relating to various aspects of authoritarianism. The more authoritarian the respondent, the more likely they were to vote leave.

Interestingly the pattern is very similar with regard to authoritarianism and Trump supporters.

www.fabians.org.uk/brexit-voters-not-the-left-behind/

The survey was online, and before the referendum vote, Maki. It found a strong correlation between "traditional" values, including approving of the death penalty and an indication that they would vote leave. A sample of 24,000 - so not insignificant.

It found that opinions on capital punishment were a 70% indicator of a leave vote - whereas income and class were only a 55% indicator (things that were strongly thought to correlate) - ie. barely more than chance. They also found that poor remainers were more likely to be in favour of the death penalty.

It's an interesting study, based on not insignificant numbers, (a lot of opinion polls are based on around 1000) and can't just be poo-pooed because you haven't read up on it.

It's an interesting study (and anecdotally this finding does not surprise me at all) but I think the fact that it was done so far ahead of the referendum makes the results somewhat less reliable. A lot of undecided voters ended up voting leave, and people with less fixed political opinions are, I would think, less likely to be supporters of "extreme" positions like capital punishment.

Statistics are a tool, that can be used to understand data better. They can be quite complicated and so can be difficult to understand. The results need to be viewed in light of the kind of test applied. (Although were any stats actually applied in this case?).

So yes, I do understand why some people think they are bollocks. When actually stats are incredibly useful if applied and interpreted correctly.

I do find the trend on this thread (and on many others) to dismiss any evidence that doesn't sit well with with someone as rubbish worrying.

The irony that it is Brexit voters who appear not to understand, who dismiss something factual in favour of their view of the world, is not lost on me. I think it's this that worries me most about the future after Brexit.

As this study was conducted so long before the referendum, we can only say the results can be applied to those that had made their mind up to vote leave at that point in time, not to 'you leavers'.

Yes, I think that there is certainly a possibility that this study is picking up trends that apply mainly to "hard leavers" who had strong opinions a year ahead of the referendum.

You would probably find that approval of capital punishment is also high on the Tory right and among UKIP supporters. But not all leave voters fall into either of these two camps.

Maki, the study is not about making leavers feel bad, or providing reasons to treat them with disdain. It simply shows that there is a stronger correlation between voting leave and authoritarianism rather than the leave vote being largely down to socio-economic factors as has been widely assumed.

This is important right now because nobody yet has any idea what "leave" will look like in terms of either our trading relationship with the EU or our rights as citizens, and whatever we are left with needs to be as palatable as possible to as much of the population as possible. It is going to be very very difficult squaring that circle, so the more understanding about why people voted the way they did the better.

Maki, the study is not about making leavers feel bad, or providing reasons to treat them with disdain. It simply shows that there is a stronger correlation between voting leave and authoritarianism rather than the leave vote being largely down to socio-economic factors as has been widely assumed.

It's arguable that it doesn't show any such correlation for actually voting though, because it was conducted such a long time before the referendum took place - if the research started in 2015, it's missing a large chunk of late deciders, or people whose minds were changed by the campaign.

I'm a remainer btw, and I think some interesting work has been done on voting patterns (notably the research based on the demographics and socioeconomics of leave vs remain areas, which is based on actual voting patterns). But I think it's right for remainers to be sceptical about research even if the findings please them in some way.

It may be that all this research shows is that Tory voters from the right/Eurosceptic wing of the party, and those who support UKIP, are more in favour of capital punishment. If so, then it's not really telling us anything we don't already know.

It's true that it applies only to pre-campaign leave voters. They will still be the majority of those who actually voted to leave though.

It's true that it applies only to pre-campaign leave voters. They will still be the majority of those who actually voted to leave though.

I don't doubt that is the case. Nevertheless, it limits the wider applicability of the findings. If you go back to mid 2015, the proportion of the electorate expressing an intention to vote leave varied between about 32% and 38%, versus an eventual leave vote of 52%.

That's interesting, thanks for sharing the article. It doesn't compare authoritarianism with age as a predictor for vote, which I'd like to see, will have to try and track down the original report.

Oh, found another discussion here: blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/personal-values-brexit-vote/

Age can give around 60% predictive power, death penalty question around 70% prediction, immigration question around 70% prediction too.

Interesting. Values. Hmm. Will be mulling that over today.

Ties in with the comments of people that they voted with their heart/gut (both sides), I suppose, they instinctively felt which side of the debate they were on.

Rorty - seriously a moment, no sniping, why did you decide after 6 months of research? Was it just an anti EU decision or was it a pro an independent state decision? If it was the latter which bit of that did you find so attractive?

I really am not being goady, I just really want to understand the positives of our future.

You can ask that of all pieces of research though, but you leavers don't like experts, or facts, or statistics.

Ahh yes, like the fact that a majority of voters voted to leave the EU, and the experts & statistics which apparently mean this = a non-democratic vote (nothing to do with the views of the person(s) propagating such tosh?! )

you see statistics when taken out of context can be made to say many things which are really not accurate...

so with this survey - apparently there is a c. 70% correlation between voting to leave and supporting the death penalty...

really - amazing to have such statistical accuracy on a survey taken before the referendum vote took place!

actually all that can be said is that there is a c. 70% correlation between those saying they support the death penalty and those saying they will vote leave...

but as we know this is inaccurate because many polls prior to the referendum showed inaccuracies against the actual vote... so until you have a poll / survey which asks for opinion on the death penalty and the way the person actually voted, you have to factor in a bias element for the difference between how people say they will vote, and how they actually vote...

this is why polls are so inaccurate - it is why so many within the city were caught out having financed large scale polls of people post-voting in order to understand the trend - and is why so many people went to bed believing that remain had won, when the opposite was true...

because, people don't give honest answers to questions like these - the accuracy of their answer is based on a number of things - amongst which will be:

• their perspective on how significant the question / answer is within the survey
• their perspective on how much the question / answer matters to the person / system taking the survey
• any fear or concern they may have about how their answer is seen by others
• any concerns over confidentiality of the data
• etc.

so someone answering a poll may do so very differently from a confidential vote in a polling booth - which is why we have the inaccuracies shown in the referendum polls - with emotions running high, is it any surprise that people might answer with a 'predicted vote' to suit the questioner, even though they have a different intention when voting?

so, you can not claim statistical accuracy on this type of poll - if those being questioned believed that the question on the death penalty was insignificant within the poll they may well have answered differently, or even flippantly not thinking it mattered, as for their opinion on the referendum - ahead of the voting day, how do you factor in the people who changed their mind / were uncertain / were not prepared to share that info / etc.?

Sorry, these types of analysis really do need to be more rigorous to be believed... it is as likely that there is a correlation with those who do / don't dye their hair... That is not to say that there is no correlation - statistically, there is likely to be one, but probably weaker than is being claimed, we have no way of knowing...