Chapter 10 concludes our story by looking at the evolving electoral aftermath of Brexit in England and Wales, as seen in the 2017 and 2019 general elections, and the possible paths forward. The steady growth of the identity liberal electorate of graduates and ethnic minorities has provided Labour with a powerful source of new votes. But this influx of new identity liberal supporters has also created new electoral risks, risks underlined by the party’s weak performance in the 2019 election. The growing electoral heft of identity liberals within the Labour coalition has increased the political power of identity politics to unsettle the attachments of economically left-wing but socially conservative ‘old left’ voters, who are increasingly at odds with the identity liberal groups now rising to dominance in Labour’s electoral coalition. The re-alignment of these voters, driven by Brexit, fuelled the Conservatives’ 2019 triumph, but that success in turn brings new challenges. The Conservatives have made major short-term gains with white school leavers, but must now meet the expectations of these disaffected and distrustful voters, and also face growing risks of counter-mobilisation from graduates and ethnic minorities opposed to the identity conservative politics they are now seen as representing.

In this chapter we turn to the story of the Scottish independence referendum, to showcase how social and political context play a critical role in critically shaping identity conflicts. Similar demographic and value divides were present in the Scottish Independence and EU referendums, and in both contexts a nationalist party had surged to prominence in part by mobilising these divisions and promoting constitutional change. Both Independence and Brexit won their strongest early support from identity conservative voters wishing to ‘take back control’, and in both cases the electoral success of nationalist parties advocating withdrawal from a larger union was a key factor leading to the holding of an exit referendum. Yet despite these parallels, the politics of the two referendums has been very different. Different patterns of identity attachment explain the divergent patterns of conflict and ultimately their outcomes – Scottish attachments to an overarching British identity are much stronger than English or British attachments to a European identity, while negative views of England and Westminster as out-groups are much weaker in Scotland than negative views of the EU and Brussels as out-groups in England. We also reflect on what lessons the political aftermath of divisive referendum campaigns Scotland offers.