Brits support FDI in principle, but that support varies by sector
Our Beyond Borders research from earlier this year highlighted new trends in public support for FDI, in particular a realignment in British attitudes from a position where voters on the right tended instinctively to support business and investment, to a new situation where protectionist sentiment can be found across the political spectrum.
Figure 1: Imagine that a foreign company or person from [country] was going to invest in or buy a British company. How would that make you feel? Net optimism (% saying "optimistic" minus % saying "worried")
New polling from Stack Data Strategy shows that a majority of British adults support foreign investment into British companies, but that support is not unequivocal. 51% agree that if a British company needs investment to expand, stay competitive or survive, foreign investment should be prioritised if it guarantees their future and saves jobs.
In the same poll, we find that 38% of British adults are “worried” in principle about the idea of a foreign company or person investing in a British company. Almost the same proportion (39%) are indifferent, with only 15% saying they are “optimistic”.
Just as we found in Beyond Borders, investor nationality is an important factor. Anglophone and long-standing trade partners in the G7 are more likely to be viewed with optimism than those in the wider world, as Figure 1 shows.
There is clearly also a hierarchy of concern when it comes to the sectors into which Brits are comfortable with foreign investment flowing.
Again plotting net optimism, we see (Figure 2) that the public are comparatively relaxed - though still overall worried - about investment (from any country) into life scenes, transport, manufacturing and infrastructure, whereas foreign involvement in advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence, and the energy sector as a whole, are viewed with much more concern.
Figure 2: Now imagine that a foreign company or person from anywhere was going to invest in, or buy, a British company in the following sectors. How would that make you feel? Net optimism vs concern [Answer labels abridged]
Sectoral case study: media
Each sector presents its own challenges when it comes to public support. Whereas in the context of energy and AI concern centres on questions of security, in other areas cultural factors predominate.
We commissioned online polling from YouGov to examine a topical FDI challenge, namely the potential acquisition of the Telegraph and Spectator titles by an investment vehicle majority owned by an Abu Dhabi investment fund and also involving US media executives.
YouGov interviewed 532 British adults whose main choice of daily newspaper is The Daily Telegraph, of whom 307 have a subscription to either (or both) the Telegraph in print or online, to examine the extent to which their engagement with a product (in this case media reporting and content) is affected by their view on the financial ownership behind the company providing them with the service.
When asked, without prior context, how much (if at all) it matters to them who owns the Telegraph, 41% say it matters to them “a lot” or “a fair amount”, with 39% saying “not very much”.
How does a prospective change of ownership affect those views? We have written before about the difficulties of polling on abstract subjects (like FDI, and also development), and in this case we decided to use a simplified form of deliberative polling to examine whether the introduction of new information affects a baseline attitude. (In our deliberative polling about development on the Green Belt, it was striking how new arguments affected support.)
In this case, we first wanted to understand the characteristics of an owner that readers would value, to start them thinking about a hypothetical change. Overwhelmingly, commitments to journalistic standards (by 84% of respondents) and freedom of the press and free speech (82%) were selected as the most important factors that Telegraph readers value, closely followed by a theme we have seen in a lot of our research into attitudes to FDI, namely a preference for home-grown investors.
Figure 3: Thinking about hypothetical owners of the Telegraph. Which, if any, of the following characteristics would you value in new owners? Select all that apply.
When prompted to select only the most important characteristic, we see the same preferences emerge, with 35% of readers selecting commitment “to maintaining high journalistic standards” as the single most important characteristic, and 33% selecting commitment “to a free press and freedom of speech”.
Then we wanted to understand whether, having implicitly introduced an ideal in the respondent’s mind, a new owner who didn’t match their values would affect their behaviour. We asked “If there was a new owner of the Telegraph and they did not have the characteristics you value, would that change of ownership affect…” their likelihood to continue reading (all respondents) and their likelihood to renew their subscription (to subscribers).
As shown in Figure 4 below, substantial majorities of both subscribers and readers either definitely or probably would influence their behaviour (53% and 52% respectively) than would not (34% and 35%) if the new owner of their main daily newspaper did not have the characteristics they value.
Figure 4: If there was a new owner of the Telegraph and they did not have the characteristics you value, would that change of ownership affect…
We then introduce more specific hypothetical scenarios, to see whether they have an effect on the baseline, and the results are similarly striking. When we introduce a specific potential investor, such as the Abu Dhabi Deputy Prime Minister involved in the bid, as reported, we see a significant effect on disengagement rates among both subscribers and wider readers. As shown in Figure 5, 69% of subscribers (and 64% of readers) would be “a bit less likely” or “much less likely” to continue their subscription (or continue reading) the Telegraph.
Figure 5: It has been reported that the Telegraph could be acquired by entities tied to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. Based on this report, would it make you more or less likely to continue reading the Telegraph ["more or less likely to continue your Telegraph subscription" for subscribers], or would it make no difference?
Figure 6: It has been reported that the UAE censors journalists and fines them for critical reporting on Government authorities. Now that you are aware of this, would it make you more or less likely to continue reading the Telegraph ["more or less likely to continue your Telegraph subscription" for subscribers], or would it make no difference?
When we then add discussion of one of the characteristics that readers cited as their joint-most-important in a new owner - namely the issue of press freedom - we see an even more marked reported change in behaviour. Per Figure 6, 76% of subscribers (and the same proportion of readers) said they would overall be less likely to continue to engage with the Telegraph in a scenario where a foreign state that did not support press freedoms took ownership.
It is clear, finally, that the trust Telegraph readers place in their main daily newspaper will be affected above all by the extent to which any new owner is transparent about the ultimate sources of their funding, with 69% saying they would have more trust if that were the case, versus 23% saying it would make no difference.