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The impact of local identities on voting behaviour

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The political salience of local identities has received limited academic attention in the British political science literature. David Jeffery discusses the political salience and consequences of the Scouse identity and places it in the comparative context of sub-state national identities across Great Britain

Image courtesy of interviewee. August 2, 2024

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This video is a transcript of a discussion on the impact of local identities, specifically the "Scouts identity" associated with the people of Liverpool, on voting behavior. The conversation takes place on July 23rd, at 1:00 PM London time, and involves a researcher, David, discussing his findings related to how local and national identities shape political behavior.

Key points from the discussion include:

1. **Scouts Identity**: This video identity is linked to those from Liverpool and surrounding areas, shaping how individuals interpret political information and ideologies. David notes that different interpretations of British identity exist across the UK, influencing voting patterns, especially during events like the EU referendum.

2. **Research Aim**: David's research seeks to explore not only national identities but also local identities, which have been under-researched. He identifies the Scouts identity as a significant area of interest due to its unique characteristics and lack of academic attention.

3. **Research Questions**: David outlines four main questions guiding his research:
- Relationship between Scouts identity and party choice.
- Relationship of the Scouts identity to EU referendum choices.
- Variations of the Scouts identity and its political relevance across Merseyside.
- Interaction of the Scouts identity with other national identities.

4. **Methodology**: Funded by the University of Liverpool, David conducted a survey of around 600 people across Merseyside. He compared the data with the British Election Study to identify patterns in political behavior among those identifying as Scouts.

5. **Findings**:
- A majority of participants identified as both Scouts and English, contrary to the notion of Scouts being non-English.
- Scouts in Liverpool showed a strong likelihood of voting for the Labour Party, a trend not replicated across other boroughs in Merseyside.
- There is significant anti-conservative sentiment among those identifying as Scouts, which extends beyond Liverpool.
- Scouts in Liverpool were less likely to vote for the Green Party, highlighting the strong association of Scouts with the Labour identity.

6. **Conclusions**: The research emphasizes the importance of local identities in political behavior and suggests further exploration of other local identities across different regions. David aims to understand whether other local identities have similar political significance as the Scouts identity and the implications of his findings for understanding voting behavior.

Overall, the conversation highlights the complex relationship between local identity and political engagement, with a specific focus on the context of Liverpool.

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Here are five key points from the video regarding "Scouts identity" and its implications on voting behavior in Liverpool and Merseyside:

1. **Definition of Scouts Identity**: The video explains that "Scouts identity" pertains to individuals from Liverpool and its surrounding areas. This identity is significant as it influences people's interpretations of political information and their ideological leanings.

2. **Research Findings on National Identity**: The speaker references research indicating how British identity manifests differently across the UK, impacting voting behaviors, such as how identifying more as British in Scotland correlates with a preference to leave the EU, while in England, the opposite tendency can occur.

3. **Local vs. National Identities**: The speaker emphasizes a gap in the research concerning local identities like "Scouts identity," which are less understood and defined compared to national identities like Welsh or Scottish. This study aims to fill that gap by exploring the relevance of local identities in political convideos.

4. **Political Salience of Scouts Identity**: Research findings indicate that those with a Scouts identity in Liverpool tend to overwhelmingly support the Labour Party. However, the political influence of this identity is more localized and less impactful in broader Merseyside areas, showcasing geographical variation in political behaviors tied to local identity.

5. **Broader Implications for Identity Politics**: The speaker calls for deeper exploration into local identities and their political significance, contrasting Liverpool's Scouts identity with other local identities across the UK. The analysis seeks to understand which local identities have pronounced political relevance, thus enhancing the understanding of subnational political behaviors.

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Here are some key quotes extracted from the video regarding the "Scouts identity," voting behavior, and political implications:

1. **Definition of Scouts Identity**:
- "Scouts identity is the name given to the identity held by people from the city of Liverpool, which is in the northwest of England, which you might know from the Beatles."

2. **Importance of Identities**:
- "Identities are important because they shape how people interpret political information, the kind of ideologies and the world views that they have."

3. **Research Inspiration**:
- "One of the things that really sparked my interest in this topic was research by Henderson... found that people identify... differently in different parts of the UK."

4. **Scouts Identity and Voting Behavior**:
- "I was really intrigued by how these national identities interact with people's voting behavior."

5. **Focus on Local Identities**:
- "Nobody ever looked beneath the kind of subnational level to look at local identities... I was quite intrigued by this fuzzy local identity that just hadn't really received much in the way of academic attention."

6. **Findings on Political Support**:
- "If you have the Scouts identity and you live in Liverpool, you are much, much more likely to vote Labor than not vote Labor."

7. **Geographical Variance of Identity**:
- "The political salience of the Scouts identity in driving Labor support is concentrated in the city of Liverpool itself... It’s geographically convideoual."

8. **Impact on Conservative Vote**:
- "If you identify as a Scouser, you are much less likely to vote for the Conservatives regardless of where you live."

9. **Scouts Identity Versus Green Party Support**:
- "If you're a Scouser and you live in Liverpool, you are much less likely to vote Green... because the Greens are pretty much now Labor's natural enemy on the left in Liverpool."

10. **Conclusion on Local Identities**:
- "We shouldn't just stop our focus on subnational identities... we should also look at local identities."

11. **Interest in Local Political Dynamics**:
- "Liverpool is a really good case study because it is quite an obviously politicized identity... the Scouts identity would be that identity."

These quotes highlight the key concepts of local identity, its political implications, and the specific findings of the research presented in the video.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Scouts identity is the name given to the identity,

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held by people from the city of Liverpool,

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which is in the northwest of England,

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which you might know from the Beatles.

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Uh, and also people who hold that identity from the kind

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of surrounding areas of, of Liverpool.

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Um, now identities are important

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because they shape

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how people interpret political information, the kind

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of ideologies and the world views that they have.

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And one of the things

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that really sparked my interest in this topic was research

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by Henderson as Outlook found that people identify,

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people use the British identity,

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or holding the British identity means different things in

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different parts of the uk.

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So if you, if you identify more British than you do,

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say Scottish, in Scotland, you are more likely

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to vote to leave the eu.

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Whereas if you identify more British than English in

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England, you are more likely to want to remain in the eu.

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And so I was really intrigued by

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how these national identities, interact

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with people's voting behavior.

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And I wanted to see how

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that identity played out on the local level as well.

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Because first of all, I think it's politically interesting,

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but also it's because it's the city where I'm from.

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So I have a kind of vested interest in understanding,

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in understanding it in greater detail.

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What my work tries to do is

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to actually say it's not just about

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different national identities.

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So lots of work has been going on.

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You know, if you identify more strongly as Welsh,

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then you are more likely to support devolution to Wales.

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If you're more likely to identify Scottish,

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you're more likely to, to support, devolution

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to Scotland and so on.

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Um, but nobody ever looked beneath that, right

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beneath the kind of subnational level

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to look at local identities.

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And that's partly because they're not really well

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understood to begin with.

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People understand what you mean by a Welsh identity,

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but people don't necessarily know

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what a scouts identity involves.

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Um, it's also not as clearly defined.

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So, you know, over time, since about the nineties, people

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who identify as scouts aren't just found in Liverpool,

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are also found in the wider area.

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So the borders of, you know, who can

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and can't be legitimately scouts are also contested in a way

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that it's not really for national identities.

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Because if you, you know, if you are not in Scotland,

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you tend not to be identified as Scottish.

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Even if you know, the kind of identity labels of the content

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of the identity, is quite, is quite similar.

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So I was quite, I I was quite intrigued

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by this fuzzy local identity

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that just hadn't really received much in the

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way of academic attention.

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That's how does the Scouts identity relate to party choice?

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Uh, the second, how does the SCS identity relate

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to EU referendum choice?

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Uh, the third, how does the Scouts identity

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and its political salience vary across Mersey side.

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So not just looking at Liverpool,

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but looking at the boroughs that make up Mersey side.

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Um, and then also how does that scout's identity interact

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with national identities?

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So just as the Henderson Al paper looked at,

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how Englishness ident, interacts with Britishness,

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how Welshness ident, interact with Britishness

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and so on, I wanted to look at how the SCS identity

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interacts with Englishness and also Britishness.

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Um, so yeah, my paper was really heavily inspired

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by the Henderson paper.

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I was quite lucky to get funding from

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the University of Liverpool.

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So thank you, to conduct polling across,

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across me side to look at a range of different topics.

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So, how people place themselves on a left right scale.

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And then to use a more objective scale,

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how people place themselves on the kind

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of authoritarian libertarian scale, on the populous scale.

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Um, and all of these speak to questions

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that are available in the British election study.

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And so what I did then was I took my poll of

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around 600 people,

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across the boroughs of, of Merseyside.

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And I compared the results there to results from,

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the British election study just to see if, you know,

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there were any kind of interesting patterns

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that emerged from within,

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from within the Liverpool data set.

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And that allowed me to do a few papers.

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Um, one of which that we're talking about today is the

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impact of local identities on voting behavior.

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Uh, another one was on, support for the metro mayoral,

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and combined authority tier

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of local government and me side as well.

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And I think together, these really let me get at this sense

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of, the role of the lo of the Scout's identity in kind

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of local political life.

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And so what I then did was I took my Liverpool survey

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and I asked voters,

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or I asked responders how they vote as well.

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And this allowed me to look at whether different, you know,

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whether those who hold a scout's identity are more likely

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to have, say left wing political views are more likely

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to be libertarian

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or less likely to be authoritarian, more likely

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to be populist and so on.

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And a lot of the findings I was expecting was driven by

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this kind of cottage industry of scouts, exceptionalism

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that you hear, you hear a lot about.

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So you might, if you are a football fan, you might see,

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Liverpool games, where scouts not English being held up,

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on banners in the cop, for instance, Liverpool.

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And, and the people who are from there are portrayed

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as quite left wing as quite, distrustful

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of authorities are quite populist.

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Um, and also, you know, quite like laid back, don't like,

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you know, kind of overly formal structures of law and order.

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And all of these, all of these understandings

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of the scholar's identity are things

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that are popular culturally,

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but have never really been tested in any academic sense.

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They're just kind of mixed narratives that have kind

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of snowballed because nobody's actually

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checked to see if they're true.

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And I think in many cases it feeds into ways of, of people

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who kind of perpetuate this myth how they want

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to see themselves and don't take the, you know,

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if they base it on football fans, well

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that's not representative of the city as a whole.

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So my methodology was kind of designed especially

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to tackle these questions

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and to put it on a more quantitative basis rather than just

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kind of qualitative narrative analysis.

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The first main finding that I was kind

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of most excited about was this was challenging this idea

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of scouts not English.

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And what I found was actually met most people

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who hold a scouts identity are also very comfortable

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identifying as English as well.

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Some people put their scout ness kind

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of equally to their englishness.

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Some people say they're slightly more scouts than English,

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and some people say they're slightly more English than

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scouts, but the vast majority of people are able

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to hold both of those identities at the same time,

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which I think is really interesting

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and helps me a lot when somebody, you know, replies to some

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of my research saying, Scouts not English.

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You know, well actually you might feel like that,

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but a lot of your fellow scouts don't.

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Um, Annette maybe edit this bit out.

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So I'm just gonna try and find the exact table

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for the second bit.

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There's, really interesting bit about

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voting, the, the world of like scout identity

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and, and voting.

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Um, and I just wanna make sure I explain correctly.

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Yeah, no, of course. No rush.

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We just have to make a note of all this

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for the editors. No rush. Of

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Course, of course. Um,

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okay.

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The second most interesting finding, I think from the paper

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that, that I was excited by anyway,

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was the effect on party choice.

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And obviously Liverpool's known

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for being a labor stronghold.

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And my first book looked at the decline

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of the conservative party in Liverpool.

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And what my research found was

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that if you have the spouse identity

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and you live in Liverpool, you are much, much more likely

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to vote labor than not vote labor.

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Um, so there is something about being a scouser in Liverpool

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and this result is not replicated across the

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rest of Mersey side.

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And so what this means is that the political salience,

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of the SCS identity in driving labor support is concentrated

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in the city of Liverpool itself.

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So it's geographically, it's geographically varied.

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It's geographically, contextual

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and that's quite exciting 'cause that reflects

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what Henderson Etal found about Britishness

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and in their survey of of Great Britain.

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What was also interesting though is

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that this was not necessarily the same for all parties.

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So if you identify as a scouser, you are much less likely

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to vote for the conservatives regardless of where you live.

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And you are also much less likely

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to vote conservative if you live in Liverpool.

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And so whereas the effect for the labor vote is positive,

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but only in Liverpool,

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the negative effect on the conservative vote is,

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is is negative across the whole of Mersey side.

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And I think this is especially interesting if we look back

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at the most recent general election, a few, a few weeks ago

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where for the first time there were no

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conservatives across Mersey side.

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And part of the reason is the general

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conservative and popularity.

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Um, but another reason is that actually espouses as people

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who identify as scouts move outta Liverpool

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and move into its environments

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and move up to places like Southport, like Worldl West

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and also into places like Cheshire,

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they take their anti-conservative voting behavior with them.

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And this has a kind

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of downward effect on the conservative

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potential in Mercy side.

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And as I kind of argue in my first book, Liverpool used

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to be a Tory stronghold and now it's not.

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Um, some other interesting things that I found is

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that if you live in, there's, there's no kind

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of support boost for that,

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that should be a, do.

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The other interesting thing is that it,

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it relates to the Green Party.

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If you're a scouter and you live in Liverpool,

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you are much less likely to vote green,

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than if you are not a scouter and don't live in Liverpool.

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And that is because the greens are pretty much now Labor's

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natural enemy it on the left in Liverpool.

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And essentially what we have now in the city is party

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politics where if you want to vote for,

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for the left, I'll vote for labor.

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And if you want to, if you would've voted Tory in the past,

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now you'll probably go for the Lib Dems.

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But just in Liverpool,

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the Greens scouters don't vote green.

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Um, and that's because there's this strongest sense

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of identity between Scousers and labor within Liverpool.

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So there are quite interesting dynamics

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and consequences of the Scouts identity

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that are geographically varied.

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Um, and this is something that you wouldn't expect if you

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just took a kind

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of a broader approach looking at Scouts variable by itself,

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we shouldn't just stop our focus on subnational identities,

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like Englishness, Welshness Scottishness,

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we should also look at local identities.

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But being aware that not all local identities will be

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as politically salient as the Scouts ident.

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So like I said before, one

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of the reasons I chose the Scouser identity is

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because I'm from Liverpool and I identify as a scouser,

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and I don't think my politics are necessarily aligned

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with many of the people who live in this city.

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And I was interested to unpack

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that fair through the numbers.

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But the second reason is

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that Liverpool is a really good case study

11:03.365 --> 11:06.725
because it is quite an obviously politicized identity

11:07.075 --> 11:09.485
through things like, you know, its relationship

11:09.955 --> 11:11.405
with the Thatcher government

11:11.505 --> 11:14.485
and the militant council, through the consequence

11:14.485 --> 11:16.725
of the Hillsborough tragedy and and so on.

11:17.225 --> 11:21.125
And so if you were to find that a politicized identity,

11:21.265 --> 11:23.325
the Scouts identity would be that identity.

11:23.705 --> 11:24.925
And this begs the question,

11:25.545 --> 11:29.485
are other local identities like say Jordi Manc, are they

11:29.485 --> 11:32.205
as politically salient as the SCS identity,

11:32.505 --> 11:35.045
or are they just more descriptive labels that people use?

11:35.465 --> 11:37.725
Um, you know, to kind of say, instead of saying,

11:37.745 --> 11:39.285
I'm from Newcastle, I'm a Jordy, right?

11:39.785 --> 11:42.365
So that's the next area that I'd like

11:42.525 --> 11:43.725
to take this research is trying

11:43.725 --> 11:46.125
to unpick which identities might be seen

11:46.125 --> 11:47.205
as politically salient.

"Exploring the Political Significance of Scouts Identity in Liverpool: An Analysis of Local and National Identities"

00:00:00 - Scouts identity is the name given to the identity, held by people from the city of Liverpool, which is in the northwest of England, which you might know from the Beatles. and also people who hold that identity from the kind of surrounding areas of, of Liverpool. now identities are important because they shape how people interpret political information, the kind of ideologies and the world views that they have. And one of the things that really sparked my interest in this topic was research by Henderson as Outlook found that people identify, people use the British identity, or holding the British identity means different things in different parts of the uk.
00:00:44 - say Scottish, in Scotland, you are more likely to vote to leave the eu. Whereas if you identify more British than English in England, you are more likely to want to remain in the eu. And so I was really intrigued by how these national identities, interact with people's voting behavior. And I wanted to see how that identity played out on the local level as well. Because first of all, I think it's politically interesting, but also it's because it's the city where I'm from. So I have a kind of vested interest in understanding, in understanding it in greater detail. What my work tries to do is to actually say it's not just about different national identities. So lots of work has been going on.
00:01:25 - then you are more likely to support devolution to Wales. If you're more likely to identify Scottish, you're more likely to, to support, devolution to Scotland and so on. but nobody ever looked beneath that, right beneath the kind of subnational level to look at local identities. And that's partly because they're not really well understood to begin with. People understand what you mean by a Welsh identity, but people don't necessarily know what a scouts identity involves. it's also not as clearly defined. So, you know, over time, since about the nineties, people who identify as scouts aren't just found in Liverpool, are also found in the wider area. So the borders of, you know, who can
00:02:07 - that it's not really for national identities. Because if you, you know, if you are not in Scotland, you tend not to be identified as Scottish. Even if you know, the kind of identity labels of the content of the identity, is quite, is quite similar. So I was quite, I I was quite intrigued by this fuzzy local identity that just hadn't really received much in the way of academic attention. That's how does the Scouts identity relate to party choice? the second, how does the SCS identity relate to EU referendum choice? the third, how does the Scouts identity and its political salience vary across Mersey side. So not just looking at Liverpool, but looking at the boroughs that make up Mersey side.
00:02:50 - with national identities? So just as the Henderson Al paper looked at, how Englishness ident, interacts with Britishness, how Welshness ident, interact with Britishness and so on, I wanted to look at how the SCS identity interacts with Englishness and also Britishness. so yeah, my paper was really heavily inspired by the Henderson paper. I was quite lucky to get funding from the University of Liverpool. So thank you, to conduct polling across, across me side to look at a range of different topics. So, how people place themselves on a left right scale. And then to use a more objective scale, how people place themselves on the kind
00:03:31 - and all of these speak to questions that are available in the British election study. And so what I did then was I took my poll of around 600 people, across the boroughs of, of Merseyside. And I compared the results there to results from, the British election study just to see if, you know, there were any kind of interesting patterns that emerged from within, from within the Liverpool data set. And that allowed me to do a few papers. one of which that we're talking about today is the impact of local identities on voting behavior. another one was on, support for the metro mayoral, and combined authority tier

"Exploring the Political Implications of Scouse Identity in Liverpool's Voting Behavior"

00:04:09 - And I think together, these really let me get at this sense of, the role of the lo of the Scout's identity in kind of local political life. And so what I then did was I took my Liverpool survey and I asked voters, or I asked responders how they vote as well. And this allowed me to look at whether different, you know, whether those who hold a scout's identity are more likely to have, say left wing political views are more likely to be libertarian or less likely to be authoritarian, more likely to be populist and so on. And a lot of the findings I was expecting was driven by
00:04:52 - that you hear, you hear a lot about. So you might, if you are a football fan, you might see, Liverpool games, where scouts not English being held up, on banners in the cop, for instance, Liverpool. And, and the people who are from there are portrayed as quite left wing as quite, distrustful of authorities are quite populist. and also, you know, quite like laid back, don't like, you know, kind of overly formal structures of law and order. And all of these, all of these understandings of the scholar's identity are things that are popular culturally, but have never really been tested in any academic sense. They're just kind of mixed narratives that have kind
00:05:32 - checked to see if they're true. And I think in many cases it feeds into ways of, of people who kind of perpetuate this myth how they want to see themselves and don't take the, you know, if they base it on football fans, well that's not representative of the city as a whole. So my methodology was kind of designed especially to tackle these questions and to put it on a more quantitative basis rather than just kind of qualitative narrative analysis. The first main finding that I was kind of most excited about was this was challenging this idea of scouts not English. And what I found was actually met most people who hold a scouts identity are also very comfortable identifying as English as well.
00:06:13 - of equally to their englishness. Some people say they're slightly more scouts than English, and some people say they're slightly more English than scouts, but the vast majority of people are able to hold both of those identities at the same time, which I think is really interesting and helps me a lot when somebody, you know, replies to some of my research saying, Scouts not English. You know, well actually you might feel like that, but a lot of your fellow scouts don't. Annette maybe edit this bit out. So I'm just gonna try and find the exact table for the second bit. There's, really interesting bit about voting, the, the world of like scout identity
00:06:54 - and I just wanna make sure I explain correctly. Yeah, no, of course. No rush. We just have to make a note of all this for the editors. No rush. Of Course, of course. okay. The second most interesting finding, I think from the paper that, that I was excited by anyway, was the effect on party choice. And obviously Liverpool's known for being a labor stronghold. And my first book looked at the decline of the conservative party in Liverpool. And what my research found was that if you have the spouse identity and you live in Liverpool, you are much, much more likely
00:07:38 - so there is something about being a scouser in Liverpool and this result is not replicated across the rest of Mersey side. And so what this means is that the political salience, of the SCS identity in driving labor support is concentrated in the city of Liverpool itself. So it's geographically, it's geographically varied. It's geographically, contextual and that's quite exciting 'cause that reflects what Henderson Etal found about Britishness and in their survey of of Great Britain. What was also interesting though is that this was not necessarily the same for all parties. So if you identify as a scouser, you are much less likely

"The Political Implications of Scouts Identity: Voting Trends and Local Identity Dynamics in Liverpool"

00:08:19 - And you are also much less likely to vote conservative if you live in Liverpool. And so whereas the effect for the labor vote is positive, but only in Liverpool, the negative effect on the conservative vote is, is is negative across the whole of Mersey side. And I think this is especially interesting if we look back at the most recent general election, a few, a few weeks ago where for the first time there were no conservatives across Mersey side. And part of the reason is the general conservative and popularity. but another reason is that actually espouses as people who identify as scouts move outta Liverpool
00:08:58 - and move up to places like Southport, like Worldl West and also into places like Cheshire, they take their anti-conservative voting behavior with them. And this has a kind of downward effect on the conservative potential in Mercy side. And as I kind of argue in my first book, Liverpool used to be a Tory stronghold and now it's not. some other interesting things that I found is that if you live in, there's, there's no kind of support boost for that, that should be a, do. The other interesting thing is that it, it relates to the Green Party. If you're a scouter and you live in Liverpool,
00:09:41 - than if you are not a scouter and don't live in Liverpool. And that is because the greens are pretty much now Labor's natural enemy it on the left in Liverpool. And essentially what we have now in the city is party politics where if you want to vote for, for the left, I'll vote for labor. And if you want to, if you would've voted Tory in the past, now you'll probably go for the Lib Dems. But just in Liverpool, the Greens scouters don't vote green. and that's because there's this strongest sense of identity between Scousers and labor within Liverpool. So there are quite interesting dynamics and consequences of the Scouts identity
00:10:22 - and this is something that you wouldn't expect if you just took a kind of a broader approach looking at Scouts variable by itself, we shouldn't just stop our focus on subnational identities, like Englishness, Welshness Scottishness, we should also look at local identities. But being aware that not all local identities will be as politically salient as the Scouts ident. So like I said before, one of the reasons I chose the Scouser identity is because I'm from Liverpool and I identify as a scouser, and I don't think my politics are necessarily aligned with many of the people who live in this city. And I was interested to unpack that fair through the numbers.
00:11:01 - that Liverpool is a really good case study because it is quite an obviously politicized identity through things like, you know, its relationship with the Thatcher government and the militant council, through the consequence of the Hillsborough tragedy and and so on. And so if you were to find that a politicized identity, the Scouts identity would be that identity. And this begs the question, are other local identities like say Jordi Manc, are they as politically salient as the SCS identity, or are they just more descriptive labels that people use? you know, to kind of say, instead of saying, I'm from Newcastle, I'm a Jordy, right? So that's the next area that I'd like
00:11:46 - to unpick which identities might be seen as politically salient.

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