The ESRC Project (2018-2022), Northern Exposure: Race, Nation and Disaffection in "Ordinary" Towns and Cities after Brexit set itself the task of challenging simplifications about diversity and social polarisation that predominate in the political sociology of Brexit and after. It was based on a wide range of oral history interviews with mainly elderly residents in four typical mid-sized towns in the North of England and extensive co-productive fieldwork with local authorities and third-sector actors there.

How can parties influence their associations with social groups? The impact of differential policy platforms on group structured voting behaviour is well recognised. Increasingly, however, scholars are also examining the effect of parties’ rank and file make-up as well as that of direct rhetorical group appeals on such associations. Some moreover argue that attachments to parties are sticky heuristics, based on a running tally of both past and present party performance. In light of these predictions I propose a conjoint experimental study of class voting in the UK.