Not just ‘the left behind’? Exploring the effects of subjective social status on Brexit-related preferences

It has recently been argued that subjective status – the way individuals feel about their worth in society – deserves greater prominence in accounts of political preferences including anti-immigration sentiment and Brexit. In this paper, we give a detailed empirical account of the relationship between Subjective Social Status (SSS) and Brexit-related preferences, using data collected online in the autumn of 2017 (N = 3600). We find limited evidence that ‘objective’ dimensions of status translate into preferences via SSS. Rather, most of the effect of education and social class on political preferences is direct (or via another unmeasured mechanism). We propose that SSS has a role in norm compliance and demonstrate that high SSS among the university-educated and among those with high-status social ties is associated with a higher probability of voting leave in the referendum, as well as higher levels of anti-immigrant sentiment. Thus, we conclude that if SSS has a role in shaping populist preferences, it is more complex than has been assumed. It exerts an effect in the opposite direction to the expected one among the privileged, and does not appear to explain the preferences of the ‘left behind’.