Leftwing activists are increasingly out of step with the rest of the British public and are more likely to think they are right while everybody else is wrong, a new study has found.
Young progressives are less willing to work with political opponents and are more likely to think those with differing views have been deceived by misinformation, according to the research.
The group – which researchers have named ‘progressive activists’ – hold ‘strikingly different’ views on a wide range of issues compared to the rest of Britain.
They are the only group with a majority who believes that immigration levels should remain the same or rise – and are far more likely to argue that ‘woke culture’ is beneficial to British society.
The research – by More in Common and published in the Guardian – found that the group which pollsters define as ‘young, highly educated and socially leftwing’ makes up just 8 per cent of the population.
However despite this they are far more represented in certain sectors such as public-sector bodies and charities, researchers found.
The findings also show that progressive activists on average believe that 35 per cent of the British public want to abolish the monarchy, when in reality this is just 18 per cent.
And this group also believes that a quarter of people would agree with letting more refugees into the country, when the actual figure is 8 per cent.
Two-thirds of those polled said they would never be willing to campaign alongside someone who had voted for Reform, while 46 per cent would not do so alongside Conservative voters.
In focus groups, researchers found that progressive activists were more likely than other voters to believe their opponents had been misled by misinformation and to hold a negative view about them.
The research also found that 72 per cent of progressive activists view leave voters negatively, compared to just 24 per cent of ‘backbone conservatives’ who view remain voters negatively.
Researchers said the findings may explain the repeated failure of progressive campaigns and the global rise of conservative or far-right groups in recent years.
More in Common carried out polls, focus groups and one-on-one interviews with more than 1,000 people for its research into ‘progressive activists’, which is defines as the most leftwing of the seven ‘tribes’ among British voters.
Luke Tryl, an executive director at the pollster, told the Guardian: ‘This report finds that a tendency to impose purity tests on those they will campaign with, overestimating how many people share their views, and using language that is inaccessible to the wider public is potentially driving a backlash against progressive causes rather than helping them to win people over.
‘If the liberal left are going to get back on the front foot it will require a much more deliberate approach to meeting people where they are, and engaging with the old-fashioned work of persuasion, rather than expecting people to be on board with social change from the outset.’