Conservative and Reform voters are more likely to think their own views are broadly similar to those of the wider populace
Key takeaways
- Half of Britons think their own views are broadly similar to those of the public as a whole; 18% see themselves as largely different
- Conservative and Reform UK voters are much more likely to see their views as similar to the wider public than their Labour/Lib Dem/Green voting counterparts
- Those who see themselves as closer to the wider public are not necessarily better at guessing the most common public view on various topics
- The individual views that Britons are most likely to both hold and think are the most common public view – that our survey suggests is not actually the most common view – are that the 2024 England rioters had legitimate concerns (24%) and that people should not be able to identify as a different gender than their birth gender (also 24%)
In a country where we are all expected to get along, it is vital that people have a general sense of how their fellow citizens think on the big issues of the day – even if we don’t agree.
If Britons start surrounding themselves – in person and online – with only those who think alike, reinforced by a selective media diet, the risk is that they will end up curating themselves into alternate realities. In such a scenario, it may only be a matter of time before those who divorce themselves from representative views start to question the legitimacy of political decisions and possibly even election results.
So how good a grasp of the wider public view do Britons have? A new YouGov study examines how many Britons think their own views are similar to those of the wider public, both in general and specific cases, whether they are right, and how groups differ in their perceptions.
How many Britons consider themselves to be representative of the wider public?
Overall, approximately half of Britons (50%) believe that their own views are broadly similar to those of the public as a whole, while 18% think their perspective is generally different to the bulk of the country. A further 32% say they don’t know either way.
The results show that, the older Britons are, the more likely they are to think that their views are representative of the wider public. While just 35% of 18-24 year olds think their views are “broadly similar to those of the public as a whole”, this rises with each age group to 63% of the over-65s.
The results also show that those who voted for the Conservatives and Reform UK in 2024 are notably more likely to think their views are similar to those of the wider public (71-75%) than their peers who backed the Greens, Labour or Lib Dems (38-44%).
While age and voting behaviour are currently strongly correlated, this left-right disparity holds strong even when accounting for age, with Tory and Reform voters of all age groups being notably more likely to think they are closer to the pulse of public opinion. This suggests that partisanship rather than age is the greater factor in how ‘in touch’ people think they are.
How far are the public aware of what the public view actually is?
It is one thing to believe that you have your finger on the pulse of the nation – but do individuals actually have a sense of the most common public view on specific topics?
To test this, our study first asked respondents their opinion on a battery of 25 issues, and then followed up by asking what they thought the most common view among the public is.
As can be seen from the chart below, there is a clear correlation between the number of people who hold a given view and the number who think it is the most common view.
However, there were some areas in which the two figures diverged significantly.
The most noteworthy are the belief that the primary purpose of education is to personally develop children into well-rounded individuals (as opposed to teaching them the skills required for work), and that it was right to hold the Covid-19 lockdowns.
In both of these cases, the British public are substantially less confident this is the public view than might otherwise be expected. In the case of lockdowns, while 67% think they were the right approach, only 48% think their fellow countrymen tend to agree, while on the purpose of education, 58% tend to hold the ‘well-rounded’ answer while just 33% think this is the most common view.
The largest gap on the other side of the spectrum is on immigration. While 66% say there has been too much migration to the UK in the last ten years, fully 87% recognise that this is the most common view among the public – perhaps unsurprisingly given the prominence of the debate.
To what extent are people deluding themselves into thinking their own views are most common?
Given that the numbers for how many Britons hold a view and how many think that view is the most common public view match so closely, is it the case that everyone always just think that all their own personal views are the most common?
This proves not to be the case, although the extent to which people holding minority views are aware of that fact varies widely across the questions asked.
For instance, the topic of immigration is one on which the public view is widely grasped, even by those who disagree. With 66% of Britons thinking immigration has been too high over the last decade, the results show that just 20% of those who personally think the level has been “about right” also believe the wider public shares their view. Likewise, just 16% who think immigration has been too low are under the illusion that this is also the most common opinion nationally.
In other cases, however, the large majority of people holding less common views are convinced the public are with them.
Of the 25 topics we asked about, this is most likely to occur in relation to the 2024 England riots. Fully 74% of those who believe the rioters had legitimate grievances think that this view is the most common; in fact, only 32% of the wider public feel the same way, compared to 44% who disagree.
A similar number of those who think that the government should not have enforced the COVID-19 lockdowns also believe that this is the most widespread opinion among the public (73%). In reality, however, only 22% feel the same way, while 67% endorse the lockdowns.
How many Britons don’t hold the most common view on a subject, but think they do?
Of course, there’s a fundamental difference between cases where the tiny minority with a certain fringe view think that most people agree with them, and cases where a relatively widespread minority view think the same.
So how do these rankings look when we see how large as a proportion of the whole population groups erroneously thinking they represent the public are?
Joint-top of the list are the 24% of Britons that both believe that the 2024 England rioters had legitimate grievances and think that this is the main public view. An identical proportion likewise think that people should not be able to identify as a different gender, and that the public agrees.
As a more expansive way of looking at this data, we have also grouped all answers to each topic together into four categories:
- those who have the most common view, and think they do;
- those who have the most common view, but don’t recognise that fact;
- those who do not have the most common view, but don’t think they do; and
- those who do not have the most common view, but incorrectly think that they do.
Unlike the prior chart, which distinguished each view individually, this separate method groups all views on a topic that are not the most common public view together. This means that for the topics on which we asked a question with three-way answer options (e.g. too high/too low/about right), the not-the-most-common-view responses are now combined into the same category, which serves to re-order the table slightly.
As a consequence, this version of the list is topped by the issue of employment rights, with 30% of Britons erroneously thinking their view on the subject (either that it is too easy or too difficult to sack employees) is the most common view.
When it comes to other combined-answer categories, benefit payments stands out as an area where notably more Britons fall into the “does not hold the most common view, does not think they do” category (25%) than for any other topic.
Likewise, when it comes to the primary purpose of education, at 23% there are notably more people who hold the most common view (that it is to develop children into well-rounded individuals), but think this is not the most common view, than for any other topic.
How good are voting groups at guessing which is the most common public view?
Given that Conservative and Reform voters are much more likely to believe they are in touch with the national hive mind, do they prove to be more capable of correctly guessing the most common public view on each topic?
The answer appears to be no, with the trend within the results instead broadly appearing to to reflect the direction of each group's own political attitudes.
This is particularly the case when it comes to: the 2024 England riots; transgender status; ‘Bregret’; business regulation; and employment rights, with 32-33% of Tories and 36-54% of Reform voters erroneously convinced that the wider public agrees with them on these topics.
There are few areas in which Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters are more likely to incorrectly think their view matches that of the wider public than Reform and Tory voters are, and only one where the difference enormously stands out: the death penalty. While only 5% of Reform voters and 18% of Tories are anti capital punishment and believe Britons tend to agree with them on this point, this figure rises to 31-36% of Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters.
Are those who think their own views are generally aligned with the wider public better at telling what the public view is for specific topics?
The results also show that those who think their views are broadly similar to those of the public as a whole are not necessarily better at guessing what the most common view actually is, when compared to those who consider their views broadly differ from the public.
Of the 25 topics we tested, for 11 of them the guesses by the two groups were within the margin of error. Of the 14 where the two groups differed more notably, those who see themselves as more in touch with the public were more likely to correctly guess the most common public view in 11 instances – or fewer than half of the overall question set.
At the same time, those who consider their views broadly similar to the public are more likely on many topics to hold a less common opinion while incorrectly thinking it is the most common. The topics for which this is the case broadly mirror the same clutch as the previous chart by 2024 voters, unsurprisingly given that the make up of the 'broadly similar' group of Britons is more heavily skewed to Reform and Tory voters and the 'broadly different' toward Green, Labour and Lib Dem voters.
See full results in the below tables
- Batch A (lockdowns, brownfield, Trump, Ukraine)
- Batch B (redistribution, NHS funding)
- Batch C (immigration, Israel-Palestine, Bregret, sentencing, monarchy, benefits, riots, same sex marriage)
- Batch D (business regulation, tax, pensions, employment rights)
- Batch E (abortion, nationalisation, nuclear weapons, transgender)
- Batch F (death penalty, university funding)
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Photo: Getty
