Do you leave your home town or stay behind? It’s a question at the heart of British politics

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Graduates are more likely to migrate to the big cities. But any political benefits from this are decidedly mixed, says writer and editor John Merrick

‘The more education you receive, it seems, the more likely you are to live away from your home town; the less education you have, the more likely you stay put.’‘The more education you receive, it seems, the more likely you are to live away from your home town; the less education you have, the more likely you stay put.’hen I picture the state of the British economy outside London, it’s my sister I think of first.

But what of the places these graduates leave behind? The standard narrative is twofold: that of a brain drain, which produces a vicious cycle of poorly paid work that pushes graduates away, leaving even fewer opportunities in their wake; and of a trend towards the politics of reaction, as highly educated progressives leave small towns, leaving only less-educated conservatives to fill the void.

Was this the result of net outward migration of people with more socially progressive political tendencies? Perhaps. Downwardly mobile graduates in the big cities do make up an overwhelming section of the modern left, and these are often the same people who have moved from small towns to big cities to chase the disappearing dream of social mobility that the ONS data tracks. But more complex factors, both national and local, cultural and economic, often work to undercut the blithest theorising.

Nor is there necessarily any link between the length of time spent in education and progressive values, just as there is none between rightwing nationalism and the working-class people who get “left behind”. The problems lie much deeper than that.

 

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