Disengaged Traditionalists

Disengaged Traditionalists value a feeling of self-reliance and take pride in a hard day’s work. They believe in a well-ordered society and put a strong priority on issues of crime and justice. When they think about social and political debates, Disengaged Traditionalists often consider issues through a lens of suspicion towards others’ behaviour and observance of Britain’s social rules. While they do have viewpoints on issues, they tend to pay limited attention to public debates. They have views in common with the Loyal Nationals, but see society differently, mainly through the lens of individuals rather than groups.

Disengaged Traditionalists are second only to the other disengaged segment, the Disengaged Battlers, in not identifying themselves with any political party. Large numbers of this group did not vote in the 2019 election, but those who did vote favoured the Conservatives over Labour by a ratio of almost four to one. This group has the lowest interest in news, but also has the highest proportion who get their news from The Sun newspaper.

Top priorities: The economy, crime, taxes

Compared to other groups

• Coldest attitudes of any group towards people who are on benefits (average of 33 v 42 national average, where 0 is cold and 100 is warm)
• Least likely to think that we are too focused on money and status as a society (70 per cent v 81 per cent average)
• Much less likely to say that we should always strive to tackle inequality in our society (44 per cent v 65 per cent average)
• More likely to think that British identity is disappearing nowadays (76 per cent v 58 per cent average)
• Less likely to think that immigration has had a positive impact on the UK (22 per cent v 43 per cent average)
• More suspicious of Muslims – they are the least likely to agree that most Muslims do not support terrorism (80 per cent v 90 per cent average)
• Most likely to hold racist attitudes such as ‘some races are born less intelligent than others’ (35 per cent v 17 per cent on average)
• Less likely to feel that we should act on climate change (12 per cent v 6 per cent average) and more likely to feel that climate change is mainly a concern for rich, white, middle-class (24 v 15 per cent average), and left-wing people (22 per cent v 15 per cent average),
• More likely to strongly feel that these days people are too sensitive about things to do with race (48 per cent v 33 per cent average)
• 59 per cent male (v 49 per cent average)

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