Similarly, access to the single market explains the solid support for the EU amongst large companies, in both manufacturing and service sectors. This is particularly true of foreign-owned enterprises, such as Japanese and Indian car manufacturers, and explains why the private sector trade unions in British manufacturing are strongly in favour of remaining in the EU. Their interests lie in retaining access to the single market too (if Thatcherism had an industrial strategy of any kind, it was to secure foreign direct investment in ailing sectors like car making, and to ensure that the British defence industries were strong; ironically, companies in these sectors are now strongly pro-European). Service sector companies that have become heavily reliant on EU migrant labour \u2013 particularly in the agriculture, food processing, and hospitality sectors \u2013 are also largely pro-European. So too are the\u00a0public sector unions,\u00a0but this is largely the result of the social protections afforded by EU law. Where membership of the EU appears to threaten their employment interests \u2013 as with, for example, the argument that the proposed EU-US trade deal, TTIP, will open up the NHS to private sector competition \u2013 they can tilt towards Euroscepticism.<\/p>\n
What then are the social bases for leaving the EU? Non-exporting service sector companies and small businesses are more likely to be Eurosceptic (Wetherspoons may be considered emblematic of the former). The ranks of the self-employed, and those workers outside the unionised public and private sectors who are most exposed to wage competition from EU migrants, are more likely to be Eurosceptic. Before the financial crisis, a combination of consumption-led wage growth, tax credits and household debt upheld their incomes; post-crisis they have seen their wages and incomes squeezed. They are fertile territory for the \u201ctake control\u201d message of the Leave campaign \u2013 just as many responded with alacrity to the property owning democracy discourses of the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Indeed, in recent polls, the strongest support for leaving the EU has come from semi-skilled and unskilled working class voters, in particular the categories of C2 and D social class voters used by pollsters. ICM\u2019s latest phone poll<\/a> had 62% of C2s in favour of leaving, compared to 24% for Remain (EU referendum weighted, certain to vote) \u2013 the highest of any age or class demographic.\u00a0 The latest ORB poll<\/a> for the Daily Telegraph had similar figures: of all those definite to vote, and excluding don\u2019t knows, 60% of C2s were in favour of leaving (compared to 40% for Remain) as were 61% of social class D voters (compared to 39% for Remain). Remain chalks up similar leads amongst social classes A and B (whereas interestingly social class E was much more evenly split).<\/p>\n On their own, these voters would not have sufficient electoral muscle to swing the referendum in the UK against the social bloc in favour of staying in. But they are buttressed by the retired population of older voters, who are much more Eurosceptic than their children and grandchildren. Their high turnout rates at elections makes them a key constituency.<\/p>\n A similar electoral logic is at work in Germany, where older, socially conservative voters are deserting the SPD and CDU, whom together represent the dominant pro-European social bloc of organised workers and employers in the leading export sectors, as well as the unionised public sector. Over the last two decades, German workers have traded real wage increases for external competitiveness and high employment, ensuring that Germany\u00a0has a large surplus with the rest of the Eurozone. But deflation has undercut the returns to savings for retired Germans, while the refugee crisis has added a cultural-conservative component to their discontents. They are turning increasingly Eurosceptic. Recent comparative political economy<\/a> goes a long way to helping us understand these\u00a0European debates in the UK and other European countries, such as Germany, but it needs supplementing with the political science literature to account for the allegiances of different voting groups, such as older voters.<\/p>\n Older voters\u2019 concerns are cultural and democratic, rather than driven by their labour market position \u2013 though they prize economic security. Whether they will vote on the latter, rather than the former, will be a major factor in determining the outcome of the referendum.<\/p>\n
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