Election shock as bombshell poll shows huge group of voters rejecting Labour and Tories . HYN
Working-class voters who have traditionally supported Labour and more recently the Tories are switching to Reform UK, according to new polling. The “Left Behind” group are set to ditch the two mainstream parties for Nigel Farage’s outfit, the research by Public First found.
Some 28% backed Labour at the last general election which Sir Keir Starmer won by a landslide. But just 12% are planning to stick with the party at the next ballot, while only 9% opted for the Conservatives.
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Meanwhile, 28% said they would vote for Nigel Farage‘s party, up from 16% in 2024, according to the polling for The Telegraph.
And 12% said they were planning on backing Zack Polanski’s left-wing Greens.
The group includes many of the working-class voters categorised as “DE” under the traditional class system such as manual workers, pensioners and those on benefits.
In 2019, pollsters Ipsos estimated that 41% of DE voters backed the Tories and 29% Labour.
This stood at 32% for Labour and 26% for the Conservatives in the 2024 ballot.
It comes as Labour and the Tories are facing threats from Reform and the Green Party.
Reform is consistently leading national opinion polls and is expected to make major gains in the May local elections.
Meanwhile, the Greens won the crunch Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this month with their polling also up under Mr Polanski’s leadership.
There is speculation Sir Keir Starmer could be ousted after the local ballots amid Labour’s dire poll ratings.
Election shock as bombshell poll shows huge group of voters rejecting Labour and Tories
Britain’s increasingly fragmented political landscape has been highlighted by fresh polling showing that a substantial section of the electorate is no longer firmly aligned with either Labour or the Conservatives.
The latest research comes as the three-party contest involving Labour, Reform UK and the Conservatives continues to produce unusually close figures. A YouGov poll conducted on September 20 and 21 put Labour on 23%, with Reform UK and the Conservatives both on 21%. The Greens were on 14%, the Liberal Democrats on 12% and Restore Britain on 4%.
The figures underline how different the political landscape has become since the 2024 general election. Instead of a straightforward contest between Labour and the Conservatives, voters now have a much wider range of options.
At the same time, separate research published on September 24 has identified several distinct groups within the electorate whose political loyalties are considerably less settled than traditional party politics might suggest. The Survation and 38 Degrees research, based on more than 8,000 voters, examined groups collectively described by the researchers as a “progressive majority”.
The findings offer an insight into why both Labour and the Conservatives face a more complicated electoral environment.
A fragmented electorate
For decades, British elections were dominated by competition between Labour and the Conservatives.
That does not mean other parties were insignificant. The Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP and others have all established important areas of support. But at Westminster level, Labour and the Conservatives traditionally occupied the central positions around which most electoral competition was organised.
The current figures look very different.
In the latest YouGov poll, Labour’s 23% was only two points above both Reform and the Conservatives. Meanwhile, the Greens and Liberal Democrats together accounted for 26% of the vote.
That distribution demonstrates the scale of fragmentation.
It also means that the largest group in a poll does not necessarily represent a majority of voters. Most people in the latest survey were choosing a party other than Labour.
That is important when interpreting claims that voters are “rejecting” the traditional parties. The evidence clearly shows dispersed support, but it does not mean that all voters outside Labour and the Conservatives have the same political motivations.
The rise of voters with competing priorities
The Survation and 38 Degrees study provides a more detailed picture.
Researchers identified five different groups within what they call the “progressive majority”: rooted traditionalists, open-hearted idealists, struggling sceptics, quiet persuadables and trusting optimists.
These groups share certain concerns, particularly around living costs and public services, but differ substantially over issues such as immigration, environmental policy, political trust and the pace of political change.
The “struggling sceptics” are particularly significant because their support is highly divided.
Labour has support from 25% of this group, while the Greens and Reform each attract substantial support. Thirteen per cent are undecided, the highest undecided proportion among the five groups.
The researchers found that Labour’s support among struggling sceptics had fallen from 39% in 2024 to 28% in the latest research, while support for the Greens and Reform had increased.
This is one example of how voters who might once have been considered part of a broad Labour coalition are now distributed across several parties or outside the electoral system altogether.
Reform has benefited from political dissatisfaction
Reform UK has been one of the principal beneficiaries of this fragmentation.
The party has attracted voters concerned about immigration, taxation, government spending and the direction of British politics. Its rise has also been particularly noticeable among voters who feel poorly represented by established parties.
YouGov’s wider voter study found that immigration has been a key factor in Reform’s rise, while also showing that a significant part of Reform’s coalition remains receptive to Conservative positions.
This creates an unusual situation.
Reform is competing directly with the Conservatives for many right-leaning voters while also trying to attract people who previously voted Labour or who have become disengaged from conventional party politics.
The latest national polling shows how closely connected these battles have become. Reform and the Conservatives are currently level in the YouGov figures, rather than one party clearly dominating the other.
Labour’s coalition is under pressure
The new research is also significant for Labour.
The Survation analysis found that the five groups identified as part of the progressive majority collectively account for nine in ten current Labour voters. However, Labour’s support has become more concentrated within these groups since the 2024 general election.
The challenge is that these voters do not necessarily agree with one another.
For some, immigration is a major concern. For others, environmental issues are more important. Some prioritise economic security, while others place greater emphasis on social liberalism or political reform.
The study found that the cost of living and the economy are particularly important across the groups.
Immigration, meanwhile, remains an area where Labour faces a trust deficit compared with Reform. Across the public as a whole, 31% said they trusted Reform most on immigration, compared with 21% for Labour. However, the researchers also found that cost-of-living concerns and the economy were more important drivers of voting behaviour among the progressive groups.
That distinction matters.
A party can lead on an issue without that issue necessarily being the decisive factor for every voter.
The Conservatives face their own problem
The Conservatives are experiencing a different version of the same fragmentation.
Their support collapsed at the 2024 general election, and Reform subsequently became a major competitor for voters on the political right.
The latest YouGov figures nevertheless show that the Conservatives have recovered to 21%, level with Reform. That is the first time in 18 months that YouGov has recorded the two parties on the same level.
The development complicates the argument that all former Conservative voters have permanently transferred to Reform.
Some appear willing to reconsider the Conservatives, while others have moved elsewhere.
This means the right of British politics is itself divided into several competing groups, rather than operating as a single bloc.
Why “none of the above” is an important concept
Although the latest headline figures are divided among several parties, the deeper issue is political identification.
Many voters are no longer attached to one party in the way previous generations were.
Some change their choice between elections. Others decide according to individual issues. Some are considering tactical voting. Others are increasingly sceptical that voting will make much difference.
The Survation research illustrates this particularly clearly among struggling sceptics, where political support is divided and 13% remain undecided.
That does not necessarily mean those voters will abstain at the next general election.
Undecided voters can become highly engaged during a campaign, particularly when parties present clear choices on issues that directly affect household finances.
But their existence makes long-term assumptions about the electorate more difficult.
Tactical voting could change the picture again
Another factor is tactical voting.
Recent YouGov research found increased willingness among some voters to vote tactically against Reform. In hypothetical Labour-Reform contests, 41% said they would support Labour compared with 26% for Reform. YouGov also found significant levels of tactical support for Labour among Green and Liberal Democrat voters in such scenarios.
This demonstrates another complication.
National vote shares do not automatically translate into parliamentary seats.
Britain’s first-past-the-post system means that where votes are concentrated can matter as much as the overall percentage.
A fragmented electorate can therefore produce very different parliamentary outcomes depending on how support is distributed geographically and how voters behave when faced with a constituency-level contest.
The political map is becoming harder to predict
The latest figures should therefore not be interpreted as evidence that one party has permanently replaced another.
Instead, they demonstrate the fluidity of British politics.
Labour remains ahead in several recent national polls. Ipsos’s September 10-15 survey put Labour on 27%, Reform on 23% and the Conservatives on 21%.
At the same time, YouGov’s latest poll has Labour only two points ahead of Reform and the Conservatives.
Those differences illustrate why individual polls should be treated as snapshots rather than definitive descriptions of the electorate.
They also show why the large group of voters outside Labour and Conservative support is politically important.
The voters choosing Reform, the Greens, Liberal Democrats, Restore Britain or no party at all cannot simply be treated as one unified bloc. Their motivations are different, their priorities can conflict and their choices can change.
What the findings reveal
The most striking feature of the current political environment is therefore not simply that Labour and the Conservatives are losing votes to one particular challenger.
It is that the electorate is becoming more fragmented.
Reform has established itself as a significant national competitor. The Greens have strengthened their position among some progressive voters. The Liberal Democrats retain substantial support in particular areas, while smaller parties and political disengagement further complicate the picture.
For Labour, the challenge is maintaining a coalition whose members have increasingly different priorities.
For the Conservatives, the task includes recovering voters who have moved to Reform or elsewhere.
For Reform, the challenge is converting dissatisfaction with established parties into durable support across different parts of the country.
The latest polling does not provide a final answer to any of those questions.
What it does show is that the old two-party framework is no longer sufficient to describe Britain’s electorate. Voters are increasingly divided by issues, geography, economic circumstances and political trust.
That makes the next phase of British politics particularly fluid.
Rather than a simple contest between Labour and the Conservatives, the evidence points towards a much broader competition in which several parties are attempting to build different coalitions from an electorate that is increasingly willing to change its mind.
