ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on these approaches and assesses voting behaviour in recent general elections. Voting behaviour in the UK focuses on the social characteristics of voters, particularly occupational class, and their long-term attachments to the Labour and Conservative parties. The decline of Labour since 2005 has fostered a Conservative resurgence, but despite the apparent regularity in the fluctuation of party fortunes, the underlying theme has been one of electoral volatility affecting UK politics as a whole. Dealignment has produced greater electoral volatility, with more people switching support from election to election. Thus a range of social factors continued to influence voting behaviour in the 2015 general election, and class, age, gender, religion and ethnicity tend to be long-term factors. The issue voting model claims that people decide how to vote by comparing the policies put forward by political parties on key issues.
