Earlier this week Nick Timothy and Tim Montgomerie had a short spat on Twitter about the reasons for the Conservative party’s failure to win a majority in June’s general election. Nick Timothy tweeted that:
‘We had a small majority and a divided cabinet, party and country’
https://twitter.com/NickJTimothy/status/912615649322717184
When other things are equal, people are generally less likely to vote for parties that are seen as divided. If the Conservatives had been seen as divided in the run-up to the election, that might have hampered their chances of doing well. In fact, the Conservatives were seen as one of the most united parties. Whatever the reasons for the party’s failure to win seats, perceptions of division cannot be one of them.
I base this claim on data from the British Election Study (BES). For over thirty years, the BES has asked survey respondents whether they see the main parties as divided or united.
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