How far will ‘moral’ issues shape how people vote on 7th May?
Issues of ‘moral conscience’ may be back on the agenda for the upcoming election, judging by the various letters and manifestos published by religious leaders for their followers. In February the Catholic bishops published a forthright letter to the laity, urging them to examine candidates’ positions on issues like euthanasia, abortion and “the Christian understanding of marriage”. The Muslim Council of Britain, meanwhile, has issued a call for candidates to support issues of religious and moral importance to the Muslim community, including the combating of Islamophobia, the fair provision of faith schools, and the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state.
But how big a role did moral issues, or ‘values voting’, play in the voting habits of different religious groups in 2010?
The chart shows how respondents to the 2010 British Election Study Campaign Internet Panel Survey (BES CIPS) responded when asked “what is the SINGLE MOST important issue facing the country at the present time?” (Note that this did not ask about which issue was personally most important to the respondent or their family). This was an open-ended question so respondents were not presented with a list of options to choose from, but could mention any issue unprompted. The chart ranks the top five issues mentioned, with number 1 being the top issue.
There was striking consistency across the different groups in the relative importance they accorded each issue.
The economy was by far the most important issue for each group. Presbyterians were the most likely group to rank this as the top issue (58%), whilst Anglicans and Nonconformists were jointly the least likely groups at 46%.
Immigration was the next most important issue for each group, followed by the outcome of the election itself and then the deficit. For each of these issues, broadly similar proportions of all groups ranked them as most important. On immigration 20% of Anglican respondents chose this issue, compared to 14% of the non-religious, and only 10% of those of non-Christian faiths.
There was some difference between groups over the fifth most important issue (recorded in the chart as ‘Various’). For Anglicans this was consumer debt; for Catholics, Nonconformists, those of non-Christian faiths and the non-religious this was unemployment; and for Presbyterians both of these issues were joint fifth.
Moral concerns or lack of family values were mentioned by very few respondents across the board. 0% of Anglicans and the non-religious put ‘Morals’ as the most important issue, and only 0.8% of Nonconformists, 0.4% of those of non-Christian faiths, and 0.1% of Catholics did.
For all groups, then, it was very much the ‘bread-and-butter’ issues which were judged as most pressing in the 2010 election. There was no significant gap between the religious and non-religious on key issues, and matters of moral conscience did not play a dominant role for any group overall. It remains to be seen whether the coming election will be any different.
This snippet is taken from our report Voting and Values in Britain: Does religion count? (pp. 59-60).
See the full report here and an Executive Summary here for further analysis of voting behaviour and religious identity.
Data source: BES CIPS 2010. The survey consisted of 13,356 respondents. Weighted data
