Few voters trust Keir Starmer to negotiate good relationships with either the US or the EU, they are more likely to think Labour’s economic policies will make things worse than better, they would rather stand up for Britain’s national interests than abide by international court rulings, they like the new Conservative immigration policy but doubt it would be implemented, and they noticed the revelations about the Chancellor’s CV more than any other domestic political news story – all according to my latest polling.
What have people noticed?
Foreign affairs – especially Ukraine, Gaza, the JD Vance Munich speech and the prospect of US tariffs – dominated answers when we asked what recent political news people could remember. The top domestic political news stories were the work history of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, followed by the Labour WhatsApp scandal.
Our political map shows which parts of the electorate were most likely to have registered each event. Stories about Ukraine, Gaza, Elon Musk and – notably – the new Conservative immigration policy were most likely to have been noticed in the left-leaning parts of the map, while stories about farmers and inheritance tax, tax rises generally and the Chancellor’s CV were more likely to have registered in Conservative/Reform territory.
Starmer the statesman?
As Keir Starmer prepares for his visit to the White House on Thursday, and following his appearance at an EU summit in Brussels, we found that voters were more likely to trust the prime minister to negotiate a good relationship with the EU than with the US – but were much more likely to say they trusted him to do neither.
Nor did voters appear to see eye-to-eye with the government on the principles apparently behind the proposed handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. More than 6 in 10 (62%) said it was more important for Britain to stand up for its own national interests, compared to just 25% who said it was more important for Britain to abide by international court rulings. Labour voters were slightly more likely to want to abide by international courts (45%) than stand up for national interests (41%). Green and SNP voters were the only groups among whom a majority (56% in both) thought the international courts should be the priority.
The pursuit of growth
Just under a quarter (24%) of all voters, and only just over half (53%) of 2024 Labour voters, said they thought the government’s actions would lead to improvements in prosperity and growth. Nearly twice as many (46%) thought the government would make things worse, while just under 1 in 5 (18%) thought they would make no difference.
If stalling growth meant the government found it had less money available than expected, only 1 in 5 (21%) of voters said it should respond by increasing taxes, and only 11% said it should borrow more. Just under half (45%) of all respondents, including 63% of 2024 Conservatives, 69% of Reform voters and nearly 1 in 3 Labour voters, said that in such circumstances the government should cut spending.
Asked who would do the better job running the economy, voters chose Starmer and Rachel Reeves over Kemi Badenoch and shadow chancellor Mel Stride by 28% to 23%, with half saying “don’t know”. Only around 6 in 10 Labour and Conservative voters named their own party’s economic team.
Does Labour have a plan?
When we asked people to name specific things the Labour government had done since it was elected in July, cuts to the winter fuel allowance once again topped the table, named by more than a third (35%) of all respondents. Tax rises were mentioned in second place (employers’ NI), third place (inheritance tax) and fifth place (VAT on school fees).
Again, our political map shows which parts of the electorate are most likely to recall which specific actions. Stories about national insurance and the winter fuel allowance appear towards the centre of the map, indicating that they registered fairly universally. Comparing the map with the results from last month, we see that positive recall of strike settlements have disappeared (although, anecdotally, rueful mentions of generous settlements for train drivers still crop up in focus groups), while tax rises and winter fuel have stuck. A third runway at Heathrow and the Chagos Islands were both recalled by small numbers but more so by opponents than supporters in each case.
One voter in five – including just under half (48%) of 2024 Labour voters – thought the current government has the right plan and that it will lead to things getting better. A quarter of all voters, including 12% of those who voted Labour last year, said the government has the wrong plan and that putting it into action will make things worse. Just under 4 in 10 (39%), including nearly a quarter (24%) of 2024 Labour voters, said they thought the government didn’t have a plan at all.
Unite the right?
We asked about the Conservatives’ new immigration policy under which the time newcomers would have to wait before applying to stay indefinitely would be doubled, and those with a criminal record or who have claimed welfare benefits would be blocked from applying. Just over half (51%) of all voters said they thought this was a good policy – but two thirds of these did not believe the Conservatives would actually do it if they returned to government.
More than 8 in 10 of those who voted Conservative in 2024 liked the policy, but fewer than half said they thought the Tories would implement it if elected. Among those who switched from the Conservatives to Reform in 2024, 82% approved of the policy but only around 1 in 5 thought the Tories would carry it out.
Nearly two thirds (63%) of all voters said they thought Reform would win more seats at the next election than in 2024. Just over a quarter (26%) thought the party would win enough seats to become at least the official Opposition, with 17% (including a majority of 2024 Reform voters) thinking they would win the most seats of any party.
Nearly 1 in 5 voters (18%) said they would like to see Nigel Farage as prime minister, with a further 15% saying they would like to see him with a big job in government but not as PM. A majority of 2024 Conservatives (55%) said they would like to see Farage with a big government job, including 1 in 5 who would like to see him as PM. More than one fifth (22%) of those who voted Reform in 2024 said they did not want to see Farage as prime minister.
A majority of 2024 Conservatives (57%) and Reform UK voters (54%) said they would be at least as willing to vote for a Tory-Reform alliance as for one of the parties on its own. However, just over a quarter (26%) of both parties’ voters said they would be less willing to vote for such an alliance than for one of the parties separately.
Forced to choose between a Conservative government, a Reform UK government or a Conservative-Reform coalition, just over half (51%) of voters chose the Tories on their own, with the remainder quite evenly divided between the other two options. Only just over half (53%) of 2024 Conservative voters said they would choose a Tory government from the three options. One third of them said they would rather see a coalition with Reform, and 14% of them would like to see Reform govern alone.
Fewer than 4 in 10 (39%) thought the Conservatives would be the dominant partner in any Tory-Reform alliance, including only half (50%) of 2024 Conservative voters. Nearly 1 in 5 (28%) thought Reform would dominate, with just over 1 in 10 (11%) thinking the two parties would be equal partners.
To help understand what is driving the choice between the two parties, we asked a series of “mini referendum” questions and analysed the answers of those who said they were prepared to consider both the Conservatives and Reform UK, correlating their answers with their stated likelihood of voting for one party or the other at the next election.
Apart from preferring Conservative leaders as prime minister rather than Nigel Farage, this group of voters is more likely to lean towards the Tories if they believe the party has changed since the last election, and if they doubt that newer parties and politicians would be any better at dealing with the country’s problems. Though they believe by a wide margin that current levels of immigration are bad for Britain, this view is not correlated to their likelihood of voting Tory as it is for those leaning towards Reform; immigration is a much more important part of Reform-leaners’ overall political outlook.
The findings suggest that the Conservatives would do best to demonstrate what they have learned from their 2024 defeat, acknowledging the past (including both pride in Britain’s history and the Tories’ failings in office) while having a positive vision of the future. By the same token, they suggest that in order to win over more current Tory-leaners, Farage needs to show Reform to be a vehicle for positive change rather than a channel for anger and the view that things were better in the old days.
The fundamentals
Only 14% of all voters – including just 29% of those who voted Labour in 2024 – said they were satisfied with the current Labour government. In a forced choice, the remainder were quite evenly divided between saying they were dissatisfied but would prefer it to a Conservative government (42%), and that they were dissatisfied and would rather have a Conservative government instead (44%). This means that 56% would rather have the current Labour government than a Conservative government.
85% of 2024 Reform voters said they would rather have a Conservative government that the current Labour government, as did 71% of those who switched away from the Conservatives in 2024 (but only 34% of those who switched from the Conservatives to Labour).
Given a choice between Starmer and Badenoch, voters overall say Starmer would make the best PM by 29% to 17%, with more than half saying “don’t know”. Fewer than two thirds (63%) of 2024 Labour voters say Starmer would make the better PM, as did only just over half (57%) of those who switched to Labour at the last election. Those who voted Reform UK in 2024 said they preferred Badenoch to Starmer by 35% to 3%, with nearly two thirds saying “don’t know”.
Offered a choice between Starmer, Badenoch and Farage, voters chose Starmer over Farage by 30% to 23%, with Badenoch in third place on 9%. Those who voted Conservative in 2024 were evenly divided between Badenoch (31%) and Starmer (30%).
Those who voted Labour in 2024 put their chances of doing so again at the next election at an average of 57/100. Those who voted Conservative were more likely to repeat their 2024 vote (66/100), and those who voted Reform UK the most likely of all (72/100).
Those who switched to Labour in 2024 put their chances of voting for the party again next time at 45/100. Those who switched from the Conservatives to Labour in 2024 put their chances of voting Labour again next time at an average of 39/100. Those who switched away from the Conservatives in 2024 currently put their likelihood of return to the party next time at 25/100.
Looking at those more likely than not to vote for a particular party (those whose highest likelihood of voting for one party was at least 50/100), this implies current vote shares of Labour 28%, Conservative 23%, Reform UK 23%, Greens 11%, Lib Dems 9%, Others 5%.
The political map
As above, our political map shows how different issues, attributes, personalities and opinions interact with one another. Each point shows where we are most likely to find people with that characteristic or opinion; the closer the plot points are to each other the more closely related they are. For example, we can see that those who approve of the Conservatives’ new immigration policy are unsurprisingly most likely to be found on the right-hand side of the map – but those who support it but do not believe the Tories would implement it if elected are in the less secure, less diverse, Reform-leaning bottom-right quadrant of the map.
