Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:34:50.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The National Front Vote in the 1977 GLC Elections: An Aggregate Data Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Paul Whiteley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The National Front is England's fourth largest party in terms of electoral support. The number of candidates it has fielded at local and national elections has increased at each successive election since it was founded in 1968. It has not, however, been extensively studied by academic researchers. Walker has provided a historical account of the development of the National Front. Scott has examined the activities and attitudes of one local branch. Nugent and King have compared it with earlier right-wing political organizations, particularly the British Union of Fascists. But rather less is known about the National Front's electoral support.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , July 1979 , pp. 370 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Walker, M., The National Front (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1977).Google Scholar

2 Scott, D., ‘The National Front in Local Politics: Some Interpretations’, in Crewe, I., ed., British Political Sociology Yearbook, Vol. 2: The Politics of Race (London: Croom Helm, 1975), pp. 214–38.Google Scholar

3 Nugent, N. and King, R., The British Right (Farnborough, Hants.: Saxon House, 1977).Google Scholar

4 Steed, M., ‘Racism and the Electorate’, paper delivered at the Political Studies Association Workshop on Contemporary British Politics, University of Sheffield (1977)Google Scholar; see also ‘The National Front Vote’, Parliamentary Affairs, XXXI (1978), 282–93 bV the same author.Google Scholar

5 See Harrop, M. and Zimmerman, G., ‘The National Front’ (American Political Science Association, British Politics Group Newsletter, x, Fall 1977).Google Scholar Another survey of young males between the ages of 16 and 20 in Shoreditch showed that 15 per cent of a sample of 301 supported the National Front. See Weightman, G. and Weir, S., ‘The National Front and the Young: A Special Survey’, New Society, XLIV, 812 (1978), 186–93.Google Scholar

6 Their mean percentage vote was 3·3 per cent in (he general election of February 1974, and 3·1 per cent in October 1974. See Steed, , ‘The National Front Vote’, p. 284.Google Scholar

7 Lipset, S. M., Political Man (London: Heinemann, 1969).Google Scholar

8 Lipset, , Political Man, p. 174.Google Scholar

9 Kernhauser, W., The Politics of Mass Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960).Google Scholar

10 Fromm, E., The Fear of Freedom (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960).Google Scholar

11 Kernhauser, , The Politics of Mass Society, p. 182.Google Scholar

12 Poulantzas, N., Fascism and Dictatorship (London: New Left Books, 1974).Google Scholar

13 Poulantzas, N., Political Power and Social Classes (London: New Left Books, 1973), p. 293.Google Scholar

14 Lipset, S. M. and Raab, E., The Politics of Unreason: Right Wing Extremism in America 1790–1970 (London: Heinemann, 1971).Google Scholar

15 Lipset, , Political Man, p. 109.Google Scholar

16 See Barnett, M. J., ‘Aggregate Models of British Voting Behaviour’, Political Studies, XXI (1973), 121–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rasmussen, J., ‘The Impact of Constituency Structural Characteristics upon Political Preference in Britain’, Comparative. Politics, VI (1973), 123–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, W., Raab, G. and Britto, K., ‘Voting research and the Population Census 1918–71: Surrogate Data for Constituency Analyses’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, CXXXVII (1974), 384–411CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Crewe, I. and Payne, C., ‘Another Game with Nature: An Ecological Regression Model of the British Two-Party Vote Ratio in 1970’, British Journal of Political Science, VI (1976), 43–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 This is denned as the percentage of the population in the Registrar General's Occupational Classification Categories 7–12, and 15.

18 See Husbands, C. T., ‘The “threat” hypothesis and racist voting in England and the United States’, Appendix to Chap. 7 in Miles, R. and Phizachlea, A. eds. Racism and Political Action in Britain (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), 174–6.Google Scholar Husbands' analysis, as he points out, is based on insights from Stedman Jones's book on London. See Jones, G. Stedman, Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

19 The National Front vote was adjusted as follows.

The mean values of the actual and adjusted National Front votes were 5·8 per cent and 6·3 per cent respectively, and the standard deviations were 3·65 per cent and 4·02 per cent.

20 See Harrop, and Zimmerman, , ‘The National Front’, p. 3.Google Scholar

21 There is a large literature on this. For a clear exposition of the problem see Robinson, W. S., ‘Ecological Correlations and the Behaviour of Individuals’, American Sociological Review, XV (1950), 351–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Only the constant terms have been radically changed by reducing the model to two explanatory variables. This results from the fact that the relationship between social class and National Front is to some extent curvilinear – there is a minimum National Front vote even in constituencies with a relatively small percentage of manual workers. Thereafter as the percentage manual workers increases, the National Front vote increases linearly (the bivariate correlation between social class and NF voting is 0·81). Because the model assumes linearity over the whole range of observations this produces a negative intercept. When additional variables are incorporated as in the full model, this effect is masked by their presence.

23 The percentage of the population from the New Commonwealth for these constituencies is as follows: Hackney North (14·3); Islington Central (12·2); Hackney Central (12·8); Hackney South (7·2); Bethnal Green and Bow (8·3); Stepney and Poplar (6·1); Newham South (4·0); Newham North East (10·0).

24 See Husbands, C. T., ‘The threat hypothesis’.Google Scholar Husbands makes the point that former East Enders were encouraged to move along the Lea Valley by the old Great Eastern Railway, which wanted to promote rail commuting by working-class Londoners.

25 Whiteley, P., ‘The decline of partisan allegiance in Britain and the National Front vote’ (paper delivered at the Political Studies Association Workshop on Contemporary British Politics, University of Sheffield (1977)).Google Scholar