Could Labour’s large poll lead be masking a fatal weakness in its approach? asks Mike Phipps.

“How bothered would voters be if Labour or the Conservatives won the next election?” asks the New Statesman in a recent article.

“Exclusive polling by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for the New Statesman finds a Labour win would satisfy just 42 per cent of Britons, which is quite low given 40-something per cent will already vote for them,” reports the article. “This suggests that a not insubstantial number of people going Labour aren’t all that keen on the party. Rather, they’re just not as repelled as they are by the Conservatives.

“More worryingly for the Party leadership, just a quarter of us think a Labour government would leave us better off, compared to three in ten who believe it would leave us about the same. A third, meanwhile, think a Labour government would leave us worse off. So over 60 per cent think a Labour government would leave them as bad as the current Conservative government, or worse.”

Ipsos polling reported in the Guardian found a similar lack of enthusiasm for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

The survey compared the support for the Party today with that shown towards Ed Miliband’s Labour Party a few months before the 2015 general election. “The proportion of those polled who said Labour was fit to govern was 31% in April 2024, compared with 41% in September 2014,” reports the newspaper. “Only 24% of people now say that Labour has a good team of leaders compared with 31% then, while 39% of people say that Labour understands the problems facing Great Britain, compared with 52% then.”

These figures suggest that the public has not changed its mind significantly on Labour. “In fact, on all four of the measures analysed by the Guardian, perceptions are more negative than in 2014.”

The big difference, suggests the report, is the collapse in support for the Conservatives. “Only 12% of the public thought the Tories had a good team of leaders in September 2023, compared with 40% in 2014. And 15% thought they were fit to govern in April, compared with 51% then.”

Starmer’s latest net satisfaction rating was -31 points in April. It represents Starmer’s worst rating as Labour leader, and is roughly equivalent to the ratings Miliband and William Hague were receiving after a similar time as Opposition leader. Not great news – until one remembers that Sunak’s net satisfaction rating stands at -59 points.

One conclusion is that Tory incompetence and corruption – through the Johnson, Truss and Sunak premierships – have given Labour a solid lead, even if Starmer’s personal ratings are low. The implication is that the next general election will be more about competence than policy and voters do not have big expectations about the latter.

But another conclusion is that voters do care about policies and do want fundamental change – on cost of living issues, the environment, health, education, civil liberties and much more. Health regularly comes top of voters’ priorities – and most voters want an end to privatisation.

But voters don’t expect much from a Starmer leadership that has moved Labour away from the popular radical platform inherited from Jeremy Corbyn and which Keir Starmer endorsed when he first ran for the leadership. Instead, on issues from social security to Gaza, the leadership has endorsed Conservative positions.

Take defence policy, which according to the latest Opinium Poll, is bottom of voter priorities. Labour has committed to a 2.5% increase in defence spending, a pledge that Momentum described as “woefully out of touch.”

A spokesperson said: “Whether it’s the privatisation of our public services, new wealth taxes, arms sales to Israel or public spending priorities, Britain’s political elite is woefully out of touch with public opinion. Labour should be setting out a clear alternative to a failed Tory economic model – instead, Starmer has signed up to an elite consensus. In doing so, he is making a rod for Labour’s own back in government.”

Veteran pollster John Curitce agrees, according to Labour List. Labour’s caution ahead of the general election could be its “undoing” if it enters government, limiting its “freedom of action” on areas like tax and spending, Curtice warns in the latest episode of the new We Are Labour podcast.

A YouGov poll two months ago suggested that 58% of voters feel unrepresented by the two main parties. Labour’s dampening down of expectations ahead of the election could yet backfire, given the huge poll swing the Party needs – 12% to get a majority of just one seat. To put that in context, Tony Blair’s famous 1997 landslide victory was achieved on a 10% swing.

As we pointed out at the time of the Rochdale by-election: “It’s an open question as to whether Keir Starmer can build the necessary vote-winning coalition. Young liberal-minded voters are alienated, as are Muslim voters. Poorer voters are de-motivated – as are activists. The problem with aiming all of your appeal at disaffected Tory voters – which pays dividends in by-elections – is that these can be very uncertain supporters in a general election. If Starmer’s central claim is that he can run the country more competently than the Tories – which should not be difficult – his management of his own Party in recent weeks throws doubt even on this.”

In more worrying news for Labour, Byline Times report that barely a tenth of voters who lack photo ID are likely to have applied for the Government’s free form of identification ahead of the upcoming local elections. Research by the Electoral Commission shows that people who are unemployed, people with disabilities, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds – all potential Labour voters – are least likely to have an accepted form of ID.

“Analysis by campaign group Unlock Democracy shows that, despite a slight uptick in recent applications for the free ID, the number of applications is half of what it was over the same 100-day period ahead of the 2023 local elections,” the site reports. “This is despite more voters being expected to head to the polls this year for many councils in England, as well as mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners.”

And in London, where the mayoral race is reported to be tightening, 5% of registered voters lack a valid form of photo Identification. Momentum describe the requirement as “vote rigging to favour the richest, as the Tories always intended,” asking “Why won’t Labour commit to repeal this undemocratic, unnecessary and costly policy?”

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.

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