Polling station at Shoreditch Town Hall during the UKs EU Referendum Polling Day on June 23rd 2016 in London, United Kingdom.
Mike Kemp | Getty Images
The U.K.’s political parties are in full campaign mode ahead of a snap election on December 12.
The vote comes amid continuing uncertainty over Brexit, with a deal yet to be approved by the British Parliament.
On Wednesday night, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson launched the Conservative Party’s campaign, telling party supporters in Birmingham that Parliament was “paralyzed” over Brexit and that the Withdrawal Agreement (the formal name for the Brexit divorce deal) “delivers everything I campaigned for.”
Here’s a portrait of British politics in four charts, compiled using data from a YouGov survey of 11,590 adults between 17-28 October, showing how the public vote is split down party, age and educational lines.
UK voter intentions
Brexit has proved the most divisive issue in the U.K. for the public and politicians alike, and the vote will again highlight that split between pro-Brexit and Remain voters.
On the whole, the Conservative Party and the Brexit Party attract “Leave” voters, whereas the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party (SNP) are staunchly Remain parties.
The main opposition Labour party has been accused of sending mixed messages over its position on Brexit but it’s campaigning from the position that it wants a second referendum.
UK voting intentions by age
The 2016 referendum on EU membership threw into sharp relief the differing perspectives between the generations with young voters overwhelmingly opting to remain in the EU while older people voted to leave.
In 2017, a general election also revealed that older voters overwhelmingly voted Conservative and younger voters backed Labour, and that trend continues.
Similarly, this chart compiling the latest voter intentions by age shows that the left-wing Labour party is most popular among young people aged 18 to 24. The center-right Conservative Party is very popular at the other end of the spectrum with almost 60% of voters over 70 years of age intending to vote for the party.
Percentage of voters certain to vote by age
Having shown that young voters are more likely to vote for Labour, this chart shows that older voters (that tend toward the Conservative Party) are more likely to actually vote.
According to the YouGov data, 60% percent of those surveyed said they were certain to vote in a general election. The percentage rises to 70% for voters aged 60 and above; if the voting intentions by age is borne out in the polls a more motivated older voter could be to the Conservatives’ benefit.
There are concerns that the December 12 election, if it takes place on a cold and wet day, could deter young voters like students from voting. Saying that, it could also deter elderly voters too that might lean towards the Conservative Party.
UK voting intentions by education
The educational background of voters also skews voting intentions in the U.K. Those with an university degree will tend toward voting for the leftist Labour party and center-left Liberal Democrats.
Meanwhile, those that attained a high school certificate, or GCSE level of education (in the U.K., young people can leave school at 16 after finishing their GCSEs) are more likely to lean to the right and vote for the Conservative Party or Brexit Party.
This is similar to the educational split seen in the 2016 referendum, with Leave parties polling better among people with lower levels of education.
YouGov notes on its website that when it comes to education and voter intention “a portion of this trend will be related to age, as older people are less likely to have degrees, however education does seem to have an independent effect on top of this.”
—CNBC’s Bryn Bache contributed to this article.
