Attitudes towards international issues are code for cultural divides in British politics. The journalist David Goodhart famously characterised a divide between lower-income “somewheres”, who are attached to the nation and feel threatened by globalisation, and more prosperous “anywheres”, who have a cosmopolitan outlook and see global contact as an opportunity.
In the Brexit era of British politics, the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson famously weaponised its advocacy of “somewhere” values to take voters from the Labour Party, even though these same voters’ preferences on economic issues were actually closer to Labour’s positions. However, a major opinion poll conducted by YouGov and Datapraxis for the European Council on Foreign Relations suggests that Covid-19 is already scrambling these new tribes, and Labour is well placed to benefit.