Blog/Analysis

Pro- and Anti-Growth Coalitions

During her time as Prime Minister, Liz Truss criticised what she called the ‘anti-growth coalition’. Although Truss argued that this was comprised of groups the British right-wing have long had a negative view of (opposition parties, trade unions, the BBC, Remainers and climate change activists), the idea that there are forces actively working against policies to increase economic growth has gained support across the political spectrum.

One of Rachel Reeves’ first actions as Chancellor was to unveil plans for a ‘new era for economic growth’ and Keir Starmer has outlined how securing ‘the highest sustained growth in the G7’ is a key ‘national mission’ in power. Starmer also defined his own version of the anti-growth coalition, saying that his government would favour ‘the builders not the blockers’.

While these show pro-growth sentiments on the left and right, there is also evidence that support for anti-growth measures may cut across traditional political divides. On the left, this is most associated with the degrowth movement which argues that economic growth is environmentally unsustainable and socially problematic, so should be stopped or reversed. On the right, social conservatives have long argued that the policies needed for growth tend to undermine national identity, community cohesion and traditional hierarchies.

The last few years have seen debates related to economic growth on issues such as NIMBYism vs. YIMBYism, ‘AI Doomerism’ vs. ‘techno-optimism’, whether population decline is a good thing or a bad thing, the extent of human progress, the ‘abundance agenda’, ‘supply-side progressivism’ and ‘Conservative Futurism’, and increasing caution, worry and risk-aversion within the public.

This all gives reason to believe that there may well be both an ‘anti-growth’ and a ‘pro-growth’ coalition within public opinion, but also that this will not map neatly onto a standard economic left-right or social liberal-conservative spectrum. To test this, we ran a poll of 1,002 British respondents over 28-30 August 2024 with a series of questions to better understand the full spectrum of people’s beliefs.

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What Do People Think “Economic Growth” Is?

First, we asked respondents: ‘Politicians often talk about "economic growth". What comes to your mind when you hear this phrase?’. Respondents were given the chance to type whatever answer they wanted in order to see what the public understands by “economic growth” and whether this is the same as what politicians mean.

Using natural language processing, we identified 9 common topics that people frequently raised.

1. Economic Indicators: Responses that mention a specific indicator of economic growth or prosperity.
2. National Prosperity: A general reference to overall national prosperity or the avoidance of economic decline.
3. Individual Prosperity: Mentions of increased individual purchasing power or an improved cost of living.
4. Employment Growth: References to job creation or lowering unemployment.
5. Business Expansion: Mentions of business growth or higher company revenue and profits.
6. Public Services/Finances: References to growth meaning a greater ability of governments to spend without debt, particularly on public services.
7. Wealth Distribution: References to concerns about an unequal distribution of economic growth.
8. Political Scepticism: Responses expressing scepticism towards politicians’ economic claims or responses describing ‘economic growth’ as meaningless.
9. General Confusion: Responses indicating confusion about the term “economic growth”.

There is a reasonably wide spread of answers. The most frequent was people mentioning something to do with national prosperity overall but without a specific indicator mentioned. The high percentage of respondents in this category suggests a broad but non-specific knowledge of what economic growth is.

‍“That the economy is going on the right path.” – 34 year old, white ethnicity, female, lives in South West England, 2024 Labour voter

‍“A more prosperous country” – 59 year old, white ethnicity, female, lives in Scotland, 2024 SNP voter

‍“Getting stronger and better off” – 37 year old, white ethnicity, female, lives in East Midlands, 2024 Labour voter

Over 14% of respondents were able to give a particular economic indicator, such as GDP, productivity or exports. This was different from almost 12% of respondents who named increased employment specifically and the 10.6% who mentioned business expansion.

Notably, almost 11% of respondents gave an answer which indicated scepticism towards politicians and their claims about economic growth.

“Another meaningless political phrase” – 62 year old, white ethnicity, male, lives in South East England, 2024 Lib Dem voter

“I am fed up of listening this phrase from politicians because they are the destroyers” – 49 year old, Asian ethnicity, male, lives in West Midlands, 2024 Labour voter

“They may talk about growth but only serve to destroy the country’s economy” – 41 year old, white ethnicity, female, lives in South East England, did not vote in 2024

There was also a high level of misunderstanding with almost 11% of respondents giving an answer that signalled that they weren’t sure what politicians meant when they said economic growth.

“I dont [sic] know as I dont [sic] pay attention to anything related to politics” – 36 year old, white ethnicity , female, lives in West Midlands, did not vote in 2024

“I hear it talked about but am not certain what it actually means” – 70 year old, white ethnicity, female, lives in Scotland, 2024 Conservative voter

“I have no idea about economics” – 49 year old, mixed ethnicity, male, lives in North West England, 2024 Labour voter

This high number of respondents that were either cynical or unsure about economic growth indicates that there is a significant gap in public understanding and trust regarding economic policy and messaging.

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Growth Beliefs

We then asked respondents to place their views between a series of two statements, with one being generally anti-growth and the other being its pro-growth opposite. These were created to cover beliefs on ‘growth’ broadly defined and capture the main debates on the subject.

1. General: Economic growth does more harm than good / Economic growth does more good than harm.
2. Priority: Politicians should focus more on issues such as climate change, immigration and crime – and talk less about increasing the UK’s economic growth rate / Politicians should focus more on increasing the UK’s economic growth rate – and talk less about issues such as climate change, immigration and crime.
3. Population: A reduction in the human population over the next 50 years would have mostly positive effects / A reduction in the human population over the next 50 years would have mostly negative effects.
4. Environment trade-off: It is not possible to have high economic growth and strong laws to stop climate change. We need to choose one / It is possible to have high economic growth and strong laws to stop climate change. We do not need to choose one or the other.
5. Technology optimism: The increasing use of new technologies makes me pessimistic about the future / The increasing use of new technologies makes me optimistic about the future.
6. Human progress: In the history of humanity, now is the worst time there has ever been to be alive / In the history of humanity, now is the best time there has ever been to be alive.
7. YIMBY vs. NIMBY: There are too many new homes being built in my local area / There are too few new homes being built in my local area.
8. Zero sum: People can only get rich at the expense of others / Wealth can grow so that there’s enough for everyone.
9. Automation: Automation and other new technologies will destroy many more jobs than they create / Automation and other new technologies will create many more jobs than they destroy.
10. Treasury brain: Strict rules should have to be met before the government can increase spending or cut taxes, even if this caution harms economic growth / Governments should have more freedom to take risks when increasing spending or cutting taxes in order to try to increase economic growth.
11. Rights: I would rather live in a democratic country with very weak or non-existent economic growth / I would rather live in a non-democratic country with a very strong economic growth rate.
12. Future: Further economic growth will not make people happy or improve the important things in life / Further economic growth will unlock more of humanity's potential and improve people’s quality of life.
13. Stress: Economic growth leads to more stress and pressure in people's daily lives / Economic growth leads to more comfort and ease in people's daily lives.
14. Innovation: We should focus on making do with less rather than always wanting more / Constant innovation and progress is key to improving our lives.
15. Old ways: We should focus on preserving traditional industries and ways of working / We should embrace new industries and modern ways of working.
16. Abundance: We need to carefully limit the growth in housing, energy, and new technologies / We should be removing barriers in order to allow more housing, energy, and new technologies.

Table 1: Statements asked to all respondents on a 11-point slider scale from 0 to 10. Randomised question order.

To check if these fit together as a single group, we created a correlation matrix with each question. The bigger the positive score means answers are more closely linked in the same direction.

This shows a positive correlation between the answers to each statement, meaning that people who agree or disagree with one statement about growth are likely to hold similar beliefs with other statements. The pair of statements with the highest correlation (0.59) was between “Economic growth leads to more comfort and ease in people's daily lives” and “Further economic growth will unlock more of humanity's potential and improve people’s quality of life.”

However, attitudes towards growth may just be another way of measuring traditional economic left-right values or social liberal-conservative values. To test this, we conducted a factor analysis with these growth statements along with the five economic and five social/cultural values questions used in the British Election Study (BES). This allows us to see whether growth attitudes form a distinct dimension of political beliefs, or whether they are just a different way to measure traditional divides.

The above figure shows that there are three clear and distinct dimensions of political beliefs. Crucially, people’s beliefs on growth are almost always unrelated to their left-right economic or socially liberal-conservative beliefs. This suggests that views about the benefits and promise of growth form both an internally coherent belief system but also a belief system that is not simply reducible to long-standing political conflicts.

The first factor (MR1) is the growth dimension, with the highest loadings (how strongly a question relates to an underlying pattern) on the statements "The increasing use of new technologies makes me optimistic about the future" (0.67), "Further economic growth will unlock more of humanity's potential and improve people’s quality of life" (0.66), and “Economic growth leads to more comfort and ease in people's daily lives” (0.64). These statements are the best at measuring people's underlying beliefs about growth. The second factor (MR2) is the traditional left-right economic BES questions and the third factor (MR3) is the traditional liberal-conservative social values BES scale.

A growth statement with a substantial relationship with another factor was “Wealth can grow so that there’s enough for everyone” which had a MR2 factor loading of -0.27. This means that higher agreement that wealth can grow for all generally means someone has right-wing economic beliefs. However, this statement’s MR1 growth factor loading was to a higher magnitude (0.55), meaning that it was more important for this dimension. Similarly, “I would rather live in a non-democratic country with a very strong economic growth rate” has a similar factor loading for MR1 (0.33) and MR3 (0.27), meaning that agreement is associated with social conservatism. However, again, the loading is higher for the growth dimension.

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Growth as a Class Divide

Using the MR1 scores, we can use regression analysis to see which demographics are most significantly associated with beliefs on growth. Doing this reveals that by far the best predictor is a person’s occupation, with people in the highest-classified occupations much more likely to hold pro-growth views. In contrast, it is skilled manual workers – rather than semi-skilled or unskilled manual workers – that are the most anti-growth.

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Previous studies in economics suggest that recent waves of technology have tended to benefit workers doing non-routine cognitive jobs through higher earnings and employment. This could help explain why higher managerial, administrative or professional respondents were so positive, as they have benefited from growth in the past and may therefore think they will do so again in the future.

At the same time, MIT economist David Autor has found that technological change in recent decades has moved workers in “specialized middle-skill occupations into low-wage occupations that require only generic skills”. This corresponds with our findings here where skilled manual workers are the most anti-growth. It therefore makes sense that people in these jobs are the most anxious about the future given past growth and technological changes have disproportionately hurt people like them.

This is different to those in semi-skilled or unskilled jobs – such as waiters, cleaners, those picking and boxing items, or assisting the elderly – which are generally harder to automate, given that they tend to require either dexterity or communication skills that technology lacks, and so have not generally seen a decline in employment over the past decades. This could help clarify why respondents in these occupations were less likely to hold anti-growth views than their skilled counterparts, as it would be less likely to affect their income or employment prospects.

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Pro- & Anti-Growth Voters Go to Polls

As growth attitudes don't neatly align with existing political frameworks, how do they relate to voting behaviour? We can use each respondent’s score on the three dimensions (traditional economic, traditional social/cultural and growth) to see what the average was for each by how people voted in the 2024 general election.

This reveals how growth attitudes don't neatly align with traditional voting patterns. Notably, Labour voters are the most pro-growth group compared to others. Reform voters show the most anti-growth attitudes, followed closely by those who chose not to vote in the election. Green Party supporters are also anti-growth, albeit to a lesser extent than these two. Given how these voters have such different beliefs on the other dimensions, particularly the cultural one, this gives further evidence of how growth beliefs do not map neatly onto traditional divides.

Figure 6 shows the average support for each statement by how someone voted in 2024. This is ordered from the statement with the highest factor loading at the top and the statement with the lowest factor loading at the bottom.

For the top five statement pairs, Labour and Conservative supporters have similar views and trade places as the most pro-growth in each. Labour supporters are the most pro-growth for the statements “The increasing use of new technologies makes me optimistic about the future”, “Constant innovation and progress is key to improving our lives” and “Automation and other new technologies will create many more jobs than they destroy”. Conservative supporters are the most pro-growth for the statements “Further economic growth will unlock more of humanity's potential and improve people’s quality of life” and “Economic growth leads to more comfort and ease in people's daily lives”.

Comparing the two, this hints that Labour supporters are more optimistic about technological innovation, whereas Conservative supporters are more optimistic about the potential future that economic growth overall could lead to. However, the differences for each question are small.

For these questions, Green Party voters, Reform voters and non-voters trade places as to who the most anti-growth is. What is striking is how similar their beliefs are for “Further economic growth will unlock more of humanity's potential and improve people’s quality of life” in which the average for these three are tightly-grouped. Nevertheless, it should be noted that all three gave an average score higher than 5 for this question, so they are not necessarily anti-growth, just less pro-growth than others.

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So, Was Liz Truss Right?

There certainly is a group of voters who have more negative views about growth than others, but these are not necessarily the same people Liz Truss complained about when she was Prime Minister.

We have found that the ‘anti-growth coalition’ is a mixture of Reform UK voters, Green Party voters, non-voters and skilled manual workers. On the one hand, Truss did name climate change activists as part of her anti-growth coalition, so our findings on Green supporters bear this out. However, Truss also named Remainers, but we have found that Reform UK voters are actually the most consistently anti-growth, who are one of the most pro-Leave groups in the country.

The common thread among these disparate groups is likely to be scepticism towards the current political system. This sentiment can manifest in different ways – from voting for a right-wing populist party to voting for a left-wing environmental party to abstaining from voting altogether – but correlates here with pessimistic views on growth and development. This finding suggests that attitudes towards growth are intertwined with broader perceptions of the direction of society and how much influence they feel they have within the system. These same feelings of alienation extend here to scepticism about the benefits of economic growth and technological progress, which are often associated with established political and economic structures.

In contrast, the “pro-growth coalition” is a mixture of people in higher occupations, Labour voters and (to a lesser extent) Conservative voters. Again, this goes against Truss’s original formulation of the anti-growth coalition where she named the Labour Party. It is also notable that supporters of her own party do not seem to be as pro-growth as she was.

It is possible that Labour supporters are more optimistic about the future now because their party has just won power for the first time in 14 years. Labour's recent messaging on economic growth would also likely have resonated the most with these voters who are following the lead of Starmer and Reeves and aligning their attitudes with the policies of their preferred party.

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The Future of Growth Beliefs

In the Labour government's call for growth, their best bet is to form alliances with those in higher occupations and, perhaps surprisingly, with Conservatives who share similar pro-growth sentiments on many issues. This alignment challenges traditional political boundaries and opens up new possibilities for policy co-operation.

At the same time, Reform UK and the Greens could potentially make electoral headway by embracing anti-growth positions. This would mark a shift for Reform, as it runs counter to the more Thatcherite policies that Nigel Farage has historically advocated. For the Greens, there was some surprise this year when co-leader Adrian Ramsey opposed the building of pylons through his constituency carrying wind energy. However our results show that this may be in line with Green supporters' general opposition to growth, despite sometimes coming into conflict with pro-environmentalism.

With regards to occupation, class has declined as a good predictor of voting behaviour in the UK but our results indicate there is a class divide over growth. This is not a simple working-class vs. middle-class divide but depends on how a person’s  specific occupation is impacted by change. An increased saliency and campaigning on growth could re-awaken a class divide in voting, but in a more complex manner than the white-collar vs. blue-collar divide of old. 

In a previous Bi_Focal, we identified skilled-manual workers (C2) as a ‘super-demographic’ key to explaining the previous election and a group the Conservatives should target to get back into a winning position. However, this is the most anti-growth occupation and is in contrast to generally pro-growth Conservative voters. This could potentially create issues for the party if they target skilled-manual workers with anti-growth policies, as this would go against the preferences of their current voters.  

Fundamentally, our research reveals that growth is a distinct political dimension that could see strange bedfellows being made in the future. Any realignment around growth presents opportunities and challenges for all political parties, and understanding these growth-related concerns could become increasingly important.

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Picture of Rachel Reeves by Kirsty O'Connor / Treasury