Domestic political preferences and attitudes towards states' use of military force

A wealth of recent research has shown how attitudes rooted in domestic politics can shape the views of citizens on the issues of military force. As one study noted: ‘In the realm of public opinion about important government policies, political parties and their leaders often serve as key cue-givers, and citizens are prone to rely on them when asked to consider topics remote from their daily experiences.’Footnote ¹⁸ This is particularly the case for foreign and defence policy issues, which are, relative to domestic policy concerns, less salient for the British public, both generally and for electoral competition.Footnote ¹⁹ Party attachments have been important factors in shaping public opinion on recent security policy issues, particularly in post 9/11 British military interventions. Jason Reifler et al. find that Liberal Democrat supporters were more likely to oppose the use of military force, favouring international co-operation and the advancement of humanistic concerns,Footnote ²⁰ another study found that, for the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions, Conservative and Labour supporters were more favourable towards military action than were backers of the Liberal Democrats.Footnote ²¹ Recent research has also shown that party supporters vary in their views on particular policy issues, concerning the exercise of ‘soft power’ and ‘hard power’.Footnote ²²

We apply insights from elite cue theory – which focuses on the nature of partisan conflict at the level of parties and their leaders and assumes ‘that members of the public will look to prominent political actors as guides for their positions’ on military forceFootnote ²³ – and extend these from policy debates concerning the actual or potential use of conventional military forces to the debate over possession of nuclear weapons. This theory can be particularly useful in contexts where there tends to be unified elite support for a military or defence stance, as such elite consensus ‘can signal that an intervention is wise because all partisan political actors are able to set aside their differences to pursue a common goal’.Footnote ²⁴

A broad party-political consensus on Britain's possession of nuclear weapons has generally been evident since the early postwar period, reflected in Labour and Conservative governments consistently maintaining a nuclear deterrent. This bipartisan agreement fractured on two occasions, in the late 1950s to early 1960s and during the 1980s,Footnote ²⁵ leading to clear divergences between the Labour and Conservative parties’ positions at these times. During these periods of fracture, the Labour Party suffered from significant internal divisions,Footnote ²⁶ encompassed within more general factionalism between the left and right of the party. The Conservative Party has generally been more cohesive and united on the issue of the nuclear deterrent and, more widely, on the use of military force.Footnote ²⁷ Recent governments have upheld this bipartisan consensus, backing renewal of the Trident system on a broadly ‘like-for-like’ basis. This policy objective was supported by the New Labour governments between 1997–2010, and by the Conservative Party, the major partner in a coalition administration with the Liberal Democrats between 2010–15, and then governing by itself from 2015 onwards. Recent general election manifestos have restated the two main parties’ support for renewal of the nuclear deterrent.Footnote ²⁸

The Conservative Party and its leaders have, therefore, over time provided clear and consistent cues to their party identifiers: maintaining a strongly cohesive posture supportive of the nuclear deterrent, absent major internal disagreement. But the same cannot be said for the Labour Party. Recently, also, the elite cues on this issue to Labour supporters have not been clear or consistent. While Labour as a party maintained its official policy of supporting Trident renewal in recent election manifestos (2015, 2017, and 2019), reflecting the stance taken under the last Labour government, the leader of the party in opposition from September 2015 to April 2020, Jeremy Corbyn, came to the role with long-established views opposed to nuclear weapons. Corbyn was the most left-wing Labour leader since Michael Foot in the early 1980s and had close links with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Indeed, disarmament has been a popular cause on the left of the Labour Party – as Paul Byrne has noted, ‘CND has [had] an inextricable relationship with Labour.’Footnote ²⁹ The party's internal fault lines over the nuclear deterrent, unsurprisingly, resurfaced under Corbun's leadership.Footnote ³⁰ In two parliamentary votes on Trident, whether as backbencher or as leader, Corbyn – and a significant proportion of Labour MPs – voted against renewal, putting him at odds with many members of his shadow ministerial team in the latter vote.Footnote ³¹

Based on insights from Berinsky's elite cue theory and given the recent positioning of party-political elites on the issue, we expect that Conservative Party supporters would hold views most supportive of Trident renewal relative to those who affiliate with parties with stances strongly opposed to nuclear weapons (such as the SNP and the Greens) or those who identify with the Labour Party, which has communicated divergent preferences between the official stance and the leader's views. We examine whether, on the issue of nuclear weapons, ‘prominent cue-givers can provide structure’ for the security policy opinions of the British public.Footnote ³² The following proposition is tested:

Another domestic political preference that could affect public opinion on nuclear weapons concerns the predominant issue in recent British politics: the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Since the referendum, scholars have highlighted how referendum vote choice has become as important as, or even more pivotal than, partisanship in predicting a wide range of policy choices. The crystallised views of ‘leavers’ and ‘remainers’ may be consequential for attitudes on other political issues, both domestic and overseas.Footnote ³³ There is some descriptive evidence supporting the notion that individuals who voted to leave the EU tend to be more in favour of Britain keeping its nuclear weapons compared to those who voted to remain in the EU.Footnote ³⁴ The following proposition is examined:

Foreign policy predispositions and attitudes towards states’ use of military force

The second theoretical strand examined in this study is the role of foreign policy predispositions. Prior research has demonstrated that foreign policy attitudes are consequential for views on specific defence and security issues.Footnote ³⁵ Reifler et al.'s study showed that the foreign policy views of the British public were structured along two key dimensions, which they labelled ‘Liberal internationalism’ and ‘British militarism’, largely akin to the core dimensions (cooperative internationalism and militant internationalism) generally found to be structuring the US public's foreign policy attitudes.Footnote ³⁶ As well as showing that the British public hold ‘multidimensional preferences about how a state should navigate and respond to challenges in the international arena’, these preferences were also found to be ‘relevant for domestic political competition’ – that is, views of parties and their leaders.Footnote ³⁷

Here we examine the effects of three foreign policy attitudes on British citizens’ willingness to support the retention of nuclear capabilities. Specifically, we assess the roles of militarism, whether the national orientation should favour maintaining close security alliances with Europe and protecting the special relationaship with the US. These are all core elements of postwar British foreign policy, so-called ‘pillars’ of the postwar consensus laid down by the 1945–51 Labour government and continued by their successors.Footnote ³⁸ We expect that those with more militaristic attitudes will be more likely to agree with Britain's continued possession of nuclear weapons, in order to remain a member of the small subset of states that comprise the ‘nuclear club’.

Britain has a long history of aligning with Europe and the US on security issues, both within and outside the broader umbrella of NATO. Previous research into the structure of foreign policy attitudes within the British public found that support for a flagship policy of European integration – joining the single currency – was negatively related to a British militarism dimension, which ‘taps concerns about British sovereignty and prestige’.Footnote ³⁹ Based on this feature of British public attitudes, we expect that those who value a strong British-European security alliance will be less likely to support the country's retention of nuclear weapons. Conversely, given that sustained collaboration on nuclear weapons and defence technologies has been a key strand of the transatlantic ‘special relationship’ with the US,Footnote ⁴⁰ we expect that those who value most strongly a security alliance with the US will be more likely to endorse Britain's continued possession of nuclear weapons. We test the following hypotheses:

The ‘gender gap’ and attitudes towards states’ use of military force

The presence of a ‘gender gap’ in relation to attitudes towards states’ use military force is well-established in the broader literature.Footnote ⁴¹ Indeed, Richard C. Eichenberg and Richard J. Stoll note ‘that it is rare to find scholarship in which gender differences on the question of using military force are not present’.Footnote ⁴² In Britain, studies of public opinion towards different cases of overseas military interventions, both in the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, have shown differences between men and women in support for the use of force.Footnote ⁴³ Different theoretical perspectives have been used to explain presence of this ‘gender gap’ on military force,Footnote ⁴⁴ but it is argued that women ‘are less supportive of the use of violence to resolve social conflicts and far more sensitive to the humanitarian and human costs of war’.Footnote ⁴⁵ Cross-national research has also demonstrated the presence of a ‘gender gap’ in views towards defence spending.Footnote ⁴⁶ Footnote ⁴⁷ In Britain, in the 1980s, research showed that women were less likely than men to support increased defence spending.Footnote ⁴⁸

Earlier research into gender and support for nuclear weapons in Britain, when the issue was politically salient during the 1980s, produced mixed findings on whether the views of men and women differed substantially.Footnote ⁴⁹ More recent evidence on the Trident debate has shown that men have been somewhat more supportive of like-for-like renewal or the maintenance of the independent deterrent.Footnote ⁵⁰ Research from the US has to some extent shown differences in men and women's policy attitudes on nuclear weapons,Footnote ⁵¹ as was also the case for gender and views on nuclear and disarmament in CanadaFootnote ⁵² Based on this existing research, the following proposition is tested:

Public opinion in Britain towards the possession of the nuclear deterrent: A review of previous surveys

To get a clearer sense of where our work fits within the broader field of public opinion and nuclear policy in the UK, this section reviews aggregate public opinion on the matter in the past decades. The analysis makes use of evidence from a plurality of sources, both long-running academic surveys and commercial opinion polls.

To gauge the balance of opinion in the early stages of the UK's development and possession of the nuclear deterrent, data from Gallup polling sheds light on the public's views between 1962–7 (given the different wordings and sets of response options used, this information and the distributions of opinion are collated in Table 1).Footnote ⁵³ The questions can be broadly split into whether they asked about the making of Britain's nuclear weapons (1952–63) or about Britain giving up its nuclear weapons (1961–7). Polls in the 1950s examining views on the building of a British nuclear weapons programme all registered majority or plurality support for this development. Questions asked between 1960–3, allowing the British public to select between an independent approach to building nuclear weapons or using a pooled strategy (via NATO or Europe, or reliance on the US), showed that – combining support for these two approaches – there was also majority backing for nuclear weapons. The smaller subset of questions in the early 1960s asking whether Britain should renounce its nuclear deterrent or not found a broadly similar pattern of opinion. In response to each question, a majority of the public expressed support for the status quo – that is, disapproving of Britain giving up nuclear weapons – irrespective of the specific framing of the question. Across these two sets of questions, support for Britain giving up nuclear weapons on a unilateral basis was always a minority viewpoint in the 1950s and 1960s, albeit the specific level of support fluctuated.

Table 1.

Public opinion towards Britain's nuclear deterrent (1952–67).

Source: Compiled from George H. Gallup, The Gallup International Polls: Great Britain, 1937–75, Vol. 1: 1937–1964 (New York, NY: Random House, 1976); George H. Gallup, The Gallup International Polls: Great Britain, 1937–75, Vol. 2: 1965–1975 (New York, NY: Random House, 1976).

Over a longer period of time, a question was included in some of the British Election Study surveys since 1964: ‘Do you think Britain should keep her own nuclear weapons, independent of other countries?’Footnote ⁵⁴ Figure 1 shows the proportions of the British public that either supported the retention of the country's nuclear weapons (either independently or within a West European defence system) or did not want Britain to have anything to do with them. Over time, very sizeable majorities supported retention in some form – highest in the 1960s – while favouring the abolition of Britain's nuclear weapons was always a minority view. Support for abolition was highest in 1997, at 26 per cent, when still around three-quarters wanted Britain to keep its nuclear weapons (74 per cent), which was in the range of 83–90 per cent in the earlier decades.

Figure 1.

Public opinion towards Britain keeping nuclear weapons (1964–97).

Note: ‘Retain nuclear weapons’ combines the percentage stating ‘Britain should keep her own nuclear weapons’ and the percentage stating ‘Britain should have nuclear weapons only in a West European defence system’.

Source: Compiled from the British Election Studies Information System, available at: {http://www.besis.org/Home}.

Figure 2 shows data from a question asked on several occasions by Ipsos MORI during the 1980s and then repeated in 2016: ‘Do you think Britain should keep her own nuclear weapons, independent of other countries?’Footnote ⁵⁵ Clear majorities of the British backed the retention of the nuclear deterrent in the 1980s and again more recently (with the level of support ranging between 63–72 per cent). Opposition to retention was usually around a quarter (23–4 per cent), but somewhat higher in 1986 (31 per cent) and the proportion of those who were unsure was less than one in ten.

Figure 2.

Public opinion towards Britain getting rid of its nuclear weapons, even if other countries keep theirs (1981–2016).

Source: Compiled from the Ipsos MORI website: {https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk}. Question: ‘Do you think Britain should keep her own nuclear weapons, independent of other countries?’

The British Social Attitudes (BSA) surveys, between 1983 and 1989 – during a period of heightened salience for the nuclear disarmament debate – asked the public specifically about their preferences regarding multilateral or unilateral disarmament: ‘About British nuclear policy. Which comes closest to your own opinion … Britain should rid itself of nuclear weapons while persuading others to do the same OR Britain should keep its nuclear weapons until we persuade others to reduce theirs?’Footnote ⁵⁶ In keeping with attitudes in earlier decades, the cause of unilateral disarmament achieved only minority support, ranging between 19–28 per cent. The majority view backed multilateral disarmament, with support for this option ranging from 68–78 per cent. Very small proportions did not back either policy or were unsure. Asked the same question in the 1994 BSA survey, 23 per cent of the public backed unilateral disarmament, with a majority again endorsing a multilateral solution (60 per cent). A small proportion (15 per cent) opted for an additional option of always keeping nuclear weapons and just 1 per cent were unsure. Another question in the BSA asked: ‘Do you think that having its own independent nuclear missiles makes Britain a safer or less safe place to live?’. Generally, majorities affirmed that the nuclear deterrent made the country more secure. Between 1983–91, the proportion with this view ranged between 52–61 per cent, though it had declined to 46 per cent in 1994, the last time it was asked. The opposite viewpoint, always a minority stance, was held by 29–37 per cent of the British public during this time period.

Overall, when asked to take a view on the country's nuclear deterrent over the decades, the public has tended to show much more support for its retention than for its abolition (unless on a multilateral basis). The views of the British public towards Trident renewal have been gauged more recently. YouGov asked the following question, covering the period 2013–21: ‘Britain's current system of submarine launched nuclear weapons, known as Trident, is coming to the end of its useful life and will soon have to be scrapped or replaced. What do you think Britain should do when Trident reaches the end of its useful life?’Footnote ⁵⁷ As shown in Figure 3, there has been consistent majority support for some form of renewal (and thus retention) of the Trident nuclear deterrent. Between 54–66 per cent have backed renewal, combining those favouring a broadly like-for-like replacement and those preferring a less powerful and costly one. In recent years, minorities of the public have endorsed giving up the country's nuclear deterrent, ranging between 18–25 per cent. The levels of support for disarmament are, therefore, broadly similar to those seen in the attitudinal data from earlier decades.

Figure 3.

Public opinion towards the renewal of Trident (2013–21).

Note: The ‘Retain nuclear deterrent’ category combines the percentage choosing ‘Britain should replace Trident with an equally powerful nuclear missile system’ and the percentage choosing ‘Britain should retain a nuclear missile system, but it should be less powerful and cost less than replacing Trident’.

Source: Compiled from YouGov polling data, available at: {https://yougov.co.uk/}.

Additional evidence bearing on public attitudes towards Trident renewal comes from the British Election Study's (BES) 2014–23 Internet Panel.Footnote ⁵⁸ An identical question was asked on three waves between 2015–17: ‘How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Britain should keep its submarines with nuclear weapons’. The data here are presented based on cross-sectional analysis of each wave. Figure 4 shows that the preponderant view has been to agree that the country should retain its submarine-based nuclear defence system (54–8 per cent), with around a fifth disagreeing (17–19 per cent). The remainder either opted for a neutral position (14–16 per cent) or were unsure (10–14 per cent). The balance of opinion in the contemporary Trident debate supports an earlier characterisation of the British public as a ‘conservative electorate’ on this issue.Footnote ⁵⁹ That is, as in previous decades, public opinion has tended to favour the status quo and been resistant to major changes in nuclear defence.

Figure 4.

Public opinion towards Britain keeping submarines with nuclear weapon (2015–17).

Source: Compiled from waves 4, 7, and 12 of the British Election Study Internet Panel (2014–23), available at: {https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/}.

The UK security survey

To understand more about what influences support for maintaining a British nuclear deterrent, we conducted the first national British survey to focus on foreign policy attitudes and security policy preferences of security experts as well as members of the general public. Here we focus on the public opinion component of the survey. The survey has several key features which, taken together, make it a rich resource for examining the basis of contemporary public opinion in Britain towards nuclear weapons. First, given this focus, the survey offers an unrivalled coverage of foreign policy and security issues, aspects of political debate that usually only received limited coverage in long-running academic single-country surveys such as British Social Attitudes and British Election Studies, which have a more in-depth focus on domestic politics and societal change. This is also the case for cross-national series which feature British samples in their survey waves, such as the European Social Survey and the European Values Study, which have featured a limited coverage of foreign policy issues. Second, given this coverage of debates relating to Britain's overseas role and security concerns, it allows multivariate analyses to incorporate an assessment of whether and how broader foreign policy attitudes are associated with views on the specific issue of nuclear weapons, again something that would not be possible by using existing survey series. Thirdly, the survey is timely, as it was fielded some months after the second main vote on Trident had taken place in July 2016, when the party-political contours of the issue would have been delineated more clearly to the public.

The survey was fielded by YouGov between 1– 25 April 2017 (before the official announcement of the snap general election), with a representative sample of 2,002 GB adults. Data were statistically weighted by YouGov to match the national profile of all adults (including people without Internet access). The data are weighed by age, gender, social class, region, level of education, how respondents voted at the previous election, how respondents voted at the EU referendum, and their general level of political interest. Targets for the weighted data are derived from four sources: the census; large-scale random probability surveys, such as the Labour Force Survey, The National Readership survey, and the British Election Study; the results of the 2015 general election; and official ONS population estimates.