Exploring Authoritarian Populism in Britain

Abstract

This chapter analyses who authoritarian populists in Britain are, addressing a relative paucity of such information until now. The authors analyse data from an original survey of a representative sample of 14,923 British adults, conducted by YouGov. Using the definition of authoritarian populism provided previously by Sanders, the analysis identifies five ideological groups in the British context: Mainstream Populists, Centrists, Moderates, Left-Wing Progressives and Right-Wing Populists. The Mainstream Populists, Centrists and Left-Wing Progressives each constitute roughly one-fifth of the population, whilst the Moderates constitute almost a third and the Right-Wing Populists make up less than a sixth. Demographically, the Right-Wing Populists are more likely than the other groups to be male, and are the oldest of the ideological groups. By contrast, the Left-Wing Progressives are the youngest group, and are distinguished from all of the other groups by the prevalence of holding university-level education. Most of the ideological groups have a majority of members in higher social grades, with only the Mainstream Populists having a majority in lower social grades.