Crashing
Four million Labour voters are now looking elsewhere. Plus: are two Reform gains on their way?
We’re only half-a-year into the new Labour Government, held by the most stable of parliamentary majorities. And yet public opinion outside Westminster is anything but.
It feels inevitable that Labour’s victory cocktail of two-parts seat to one-part vote would let loose this void of indifference in the land, filled in double time by impulse politics and general voter apathy. While most Britons still prefer Labour to the Conservatives when it comes to who should sit in Number 10, the numbers are not overwhelming. To a growing number, “neither” is the most popular choice there is. The most popular party has just a quarter of the electorate on side right now. This is not normal.
Which brings us to the news of last week.
Pollster Find Out Now has put Reform in the lead in their most recent opinion poll - the party’s first lead ever. Complimented by other polls putting Reform just one point behind Labour, to dismiss the admittedly eye-opening numbers as an outlier is a fool’s exercise. Because unlike the Brexit Party’s rare poll leads (brought into being in the aftermath of the European Elections and Theresa May’s humiliating resignation) here we have numbers for the radical right in so-called “normal” times.
I initially wrote about this in detail over at the New Statesman, which you can read here. But I do want to draw your attention to something related.
Within FON’s own data tables we are able to work out a few things, one of which being where Reform is getting their votes from. In every election cycle you can be sure every party going brings out new voters. It’s a product of people coming of age and a churn in political interest/exhaustion. Hundreds of thousands of those who came out for the last gasp of New Labour in 2010, for instance, were almost certainly non-voters by virtue of age or historic indifference.
But what the FON cross-tabs show today is that Reform is gaining disproportionately among non-voters.
The sankey chart here does this point justice:
It’s hefty stuff. Near half of Reform’s gain in votes is down to previous non-voters now saying they’ll come out in favour of the Faragistas.
Interesting though this is, it’s worth noting very loudly the health warning that comes with over-analysing non voters.
They’re non-voters.
You’ll be, uh, surprised to learn they are a little less reliable when it comes to voting than those with a history for voting. Generally speaking, respondents to polls almost always overestimate their certainty to do something - voting included.
So Reform’s lead is a little more precarious than at first glance. It’s an overreliance on the unreliable. But another thing to consider is this. Three million of those who went for either Labour or the Conservatives at the last election now say they’re not sure how they’d vote. For Labour alone it’s 2.1 million - which is on top of 2.6 million who now say they would vote for other parties, including 600,000 for Reform, 277,000 for the Conservatives and 584,000 for the Greens.
When opinion polls recalibrate to exclude the intensely apathetic - as opposed to the lukewarm, it makes for a smaller sample of committed electors. If an election were held now, turnout would collapse on July’s already measly sums. This, at the same time as near 3.4 million non-voters who now say they would come out for Reform tells you all you the following. Our old politics is crashing. Typical voters are less willing to come out, whereas atypical voters are now saying they’re determined to do right at the ballot box. It’s unreliable stuff. Simply, welcome to your new normal.
It’s the economy again, stupid
As if the headline polls weren’t enough to paint a sorry sight for Labour, take a look at my favourite metric. The party voters most trust to manage the economy is in my mind as key a metric to gauging a general election result as general party popularity. If you do not lead on the economy you do not lead on competence - why when the cards are down would voters entrust you with high office?
In America Kamala Harris barely came close to Donald Trump on the metric. Trump’s lead over Harris ranged from 3-10pts throughout the campaign season. Should we have been at all surprised with the result of 5th November?
Back home in Britain, Labour’s hard-won lead on the subject is crashing. Right now it sits south of 2pts, down from 14 on the eve of election day.
Now maybe the Rachel Reeves intervention of this week - the key change narrative that is dragging government comms from “tut tut, look at all we've inherited” to “let’s gun for growth, let's build a runway” might arrest that decline. Better to make the news than have the news made for you.
But it comes amid poor marks from the voters. And the real test is: is anyone paying attention? Because the most noticed of government policies announced thus far has been… oh, the means testing of winter fuel payments.
Some start.
Read more from me at the New Statesman.
Upcoming by-elections
No council by-elections from Thursday 30th to digest. But for Thursday 6th Feb we have a juicy few to crunch through.
The joy of Britain Elects having Substack is that I can wheel out the Britain Predicts model at my leisure. Since the general election I’ve used it here and there to chart the latest polls. But I’ve also modelled it onto wards as well as compare it to recent council by-elections. Initially just for fun. But then at the request of readers and candidates curious about their prospects. And when put up against the by-elections, it's done rather well. So why not make something of it?
Council by-elections are not general elections. I've covered that before. But interesting, I think, to the reader, would be knowing how the wards up on Thursdays would expect to vote in a general election, and whether the incoming by-election results bear that out in any way. It'd be interesting. And a niche way at charting the rise (or not) of Reform. So let’s have at it.
Here are the council seats up next Thursday (6th):
Hyndburn, Baxenden ward, Labour defence. Britain Predicts says Reform would win this in a GE.
Medway, Rochester East & Warren Wood, two Labour defences. Britain Predicts says Labour would win this in a GE.
Medway, Gillingham South, Labour defence. Britain Predicts says Labour would win here in a GE.
Tendring, The Bentleys & Frating, Conservative defence. Britain Predicts says Reform would win here in a GE.
Wokingham, Winnersh, Liberal Democrat defence. Britain Predicts says the Lib Dems would win this in a GE.
On the projected Reform wins - note the Tendring ward is within the Clacton constituency. But the Hyndburn (Lancashire) ward sits within a part of the world Labour breezed past the Tories in in July. But were the national polls to be right, and Reform to pull in a fifth to a quarter of the vote, then it is in places like Hyndburn where Reform should be running rampant.
Something to keep an eye on next Thursday.
Thanks
Thank you for reading. I’m blown away by the level of interest in Britain Elects having a Substack after only minimal promotion. Be sure to forward to a friend. There’s geeks among all of us.
The very best,
Ben