The British political landscape on immigration before Brexit had a number of stable features: the public disliked migration; politicians from both parties tended to accept (if not actively support) higher migration levels than voters preferred; this mismatch generated electoral disruption when the issue rose up the agenda, in particular through mobilisation on the radical right and far right; and this initially intense public scepticism was gradually being eroded by demographic change.

British electoral geography has profoundly changed over the past decades. Place has become central to the language of elections and policy offerings from parties. Political divides have opened up between voters in locations strongly connected to global growth and those that are not. How do place-based factors matter for voting behaviour, and which political attitudes do they operate through?

The next UK general election looks set to be fought in a context of economic turmoil not seen in the UK since the 2010 election. However, the public mood toward public spending has dramatically shifted since then. Public services and the cost-of-living are at the forefront of voters’ worries, and majorities say they support increases in public spending even though the tax burden is historically high. How do voters form attitudes on economic policy and assess its trade-offs? What role did Brexit, Covid-19 and the 2022 ‘mini-budget’ play in shifting the grounds of the economic debate?