How to sell universal basic income to Red Wall voters: it benefits your health, protects the NHS, and makes you more financially secure
Our friends at Compass have produced a very interesting piece of research, titled Winning the vote with a universal basic income: evidence from the 'red wall' (download PDF here).
At AG, we have long supported UBI and its variants—and in terms of its fuelling of communities and individuals’ agency, at a time of egregious income inequality, we do even more so now.
Below is the executive summary for the report. (Please note that the paper is occasionally oriented towards whether UBI can help the Labour Party win over seats taken by the Conservative Party in the last election. This site is much more ecumenical, indeed aiming at a parallel polis to this one… But there’s still a lot of value here.)
Universal Basic Income (UBI) describes a range of systems under which all citizens or permanent residents are provided with a guaranteed, secure cash transfer on a regular basis. It has divided progressive policy makers due, in part, to an assumption that it would not be popular with voters, particularly in ‘left-behind’ constituencies. We can now say that this assumption is incorrect.
This report brings together findings from a number of surveys with ‘red wall’ voters in Wales and the Midlands and North of England over the course of two years in a pandemic and post-pandemic context. It seeks to contextualise these findings and chart a way forward for progressive forces to achieve transformative change through policies like UBI.
The findings suggest consistently high levels of support for UBI. Support increases even among opponents when the policy is presented to voters in terms developed by strong opponents of the policy.
We find little evidence of voters’ bearing conservative social values that preclude radical socioeconomic policy. Rather, those voters are firmly aware of the need for radical reform and recognise the need for redistributive policy.
The redistributive outcomes modelled in our first report, Tackling Poverty: The Power of a Universal Basic Income, have the potential to be endorsed by those who are likely to benefit most: those in left behind communities in Labour’s former heartlands.
This report and its predecessor show that UBI is a powerful tool for dealing with several current and coming social and economic faultlines, and especially for cutting poverty and inequality.
For these reasons, it could also be a key means by which Labour, in particular, can re-engage with its traditional voters.
There are 3 key findings regarding existing attitudes to UBI:
The electorate recognises the need for economic change and for
solutions as big as the problems faced.
UBI provides an incentive to vote and can tackle political cynicism.
UBI transforms social security into social cohesion.
There are 3 key findings for presenting UBI to voters:
Support is high – the issue is framing.
Material circumstances matter more than values.
Anecdotal narratives that highlight ‘in-group’ material benefits for
di!erent groups of people are important.
The findings are summarised in themes here but further detail is available in the main section of this report.
1. The electorate recognises the need for economic change and for solutions as big as the problems.
Voters recognise that big changes are needed to address big problems. The Conservatives have been far more successful in capitalising on this through appealing to people’s day-to-day material circumstances and need for change, even if they are likely to be unable to deliver on those promises.
Policies like Furlough during the Pandemic and ‘Levelling Up’ following Brexit have proved popular with voters and show that grand economic schemes are possible with scope for narratives of investment and growth out of the crisis.
Focusing on fiscal neutrality by increasing income taxes is self-defeating – with the cost of living crisis a!ecting millions, Universal Basic Income has to be a redistributive measure to benefit the majority.
Recommendation 1.1: Progressive parties should be progressive – the electorate recognises the need for economic change.
Recommendation 1.2: Politicians need to emphasise both that the present system is chaotic and that UBI is a means of reducing uncertainty.
Recommendation 1.3: Universal Basic Income needs to be presented as a central pillar of ‘Levelling Up’ to foster regional development.
Recommendation 1.4: Universal Basic Income needs to be funded by externalised streams: cutting red tape by reforming the Department for Work and Pensions; removing tax reliefs that benefit the wealthy; introducing land and wealth taxes on the wealthiest.
2. UBI provides an incentive to vote and can tackle political cynicism
Right-wing parties have been more e!ective in appealing to voters’ need for control and security even though the policies they pursue necessarily undermine both.
Progressive parties, and Labour in particular, need to make a transformative offer to voters who already recognise the need for change. These voters are the majority.
People at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum recognise the need for redistributive measures. But they have lost faith in the ability of politicians to deliver those goods, through the failure of New Labour to transform the ‘red wall’ when in Government and subsequent positions on Brexit.
Progressives can only halt the ‘downward spiral’ by setting out a vision for a secure Britain using a set of narratives that tie policies that transform citizens’ lives to the vulnerabilities that citizens recognise themselves.
People are biddable, but require tangible incentives to turn out to vote. Dealing with cynicism requires good governance, and there are examples of progressive leadership across the UK that can do this.
Recommendation 2.1: Progressive parties should seek to genuinely improve people’s lives as their only route to power.
Recommendation 2.2: Progressive parties should make redistribution their single biggest advantage over a Government centrally responsible for fostering inequality in the first place.
Recommendation 2.3: Progressive parties, and Labour in particular, need to make a transformative o!er to the majority of voters who already recognise the need for change.
Recommendation 2.4: Progressives should present Wales, Manchester, Preston, and Salford as living examples of progressive government in practice to assuage cynicism and demonstrate competence.
3. UBI transforms social security into social cohesion.
Generous Universal Basic Income schemes transform welfare as something for out-groups (unemployed people, etc.) to something for hard-working, aspirational citizens. Low-level schemes are seen as inadequate and do not achieve two key benefits of Universal Basic Income: reduction in complexity and increase in e"ciency.
Recommendation 3.1: We should avoid advocating very low-cost starter schemes, as these schemes do not reduce complexity, increase efficiency or avoid UBI being seen as something solely for unemployed ‘others’.
Recommendation 3.2: Politicians need to go big on UBI – its value lies in being sufficient to protect those in work specifically.
4. Support is high – the issue is framing
Universal Basic Income already has extremely high levels of support (70-76 on a 100-point scale) in the ‘red wall’.
We found no evidence in our surveys to support the ‘insurmountable conservative values’ hypothesis - that voters’ values are necessarily opposed to progressive change.
Voters are overwhelmingly supportive of Universal Basic Income and other redistributive policies when framed effectively.
Recommendation 4.1: ‘Adversarial co-production’ (or ‘collaboration’) with opponents of policies should be used to guide presentation of evidence-based policy.
Recommendation 4.2: Initial positions on policies should be understood as starting points for persuasion, not end points for evaluation of policy.
Recommendation 4.3: Policies have to be tied to people’s sense of self; values ought only to be used as narrative devices.
5. Material circumstances matter more than values
People are aware of their financial strain and need for security, but underestimate the impact of a significant cash transfer on their own affairs.
‘Red wall’ voters are much more concerned about their day-to-day material circumstances than abstract values. People’s views are fluid and redistributive policies are the single biggest advantage that progressives hold over conservatives.
Recommendation 5: Progressives should use anecdotal, narrative voices to tie people’s pre-existing needs to the benefits of the policy, without relying on values-based narratives.
6. The importance of anecdotal narratives that highlight ‘in-group’ material benefits for different groups of people.
Evidence alone is not enough to persuade people of the benefits of policies like UBI. Instead, narratives must be developed to help voters recognise the specific personal benefit of redistributive policies.
Health and economic security are two related concerns that are often poorly presented to voters, but are critically important to people and need to be the basis for any electoral strategy to win on a platform endorsing UBI.
Recommendation 6.1: Policy makers need to use narratives that highlight ‘in-group’ benefits in ways that emphasise material impact for di!erent groups of people.
Recommendation 6.2: Policy makers must stop referring to UBI as a policy for unemployed people. UBI is a policy that offers the single biggest improvement in workers’ interests since the National Minimum Wage.
Recommendation 6.3: In presenting a transformative policy package, progressive parties should use different narratives to appeal to di!erent groups: health is particularly salient for older people; security is particularly salient for younger people.
More here (and Download PDF). Please note, from our archive, the range of benefits for a UBI beyond the basically “redistributive” - for artists, youth, homeless, and Covid.