A majority of Labour voters are repelled by the Conservatives rather than attracted by Sir Keir Starmer, polling finds.
About 75 per cent of those switching from the Tories to Labour say their main motivation is unhappiness with the government rather than enthusiasm for opposition plans.
Conservative voters are barely more enthused by Rishi Sunak, with 45 per cent saying they mainly want to oppose Labour, against 44 per cent saying they back what the Tories stand for.
With both party leaders planning to set out their plans for the country after parliament’s summer break, YouGov polling for The Times suggests disapproval of the alternative is driving support for both men.
Labour has a 20-point poll lead but the dramatic shift towards the party in recent months appears to be a consequence of hostility towards the government at a time of rising prices, higher mortgage payments and economic uncertainty.
Of those planning to vote Labour, 51 per cent said this was because “I am unhappy with the Conservatives and want to oppose them”, against 45 per cent saying they were backing the party “because I support what they stand for and want to support them”.
The trend is particularly pronounced among women and younger voters. Some 54 per cent of female Labour voters say they mainly want rid of the Conservatives, rising to 66 per cent of those aged 18 to 24.
Among those who voted Conservative in 2019 and now plan to vote Labour 73 per cent said their main reason was disillusionment with the Tories. Just 18 per cent of these Tory switchers say they are mainly attracted by Starmer’s offer. Even those who backed Labour in 2019 are split, with 51 per cent sticking with the party out of enthusiasm and 46 per cent motivated mainly by dislike of the Tories.
Starmer’s allies say that even if voters are unhappy with the government, they are only willing to switch to Labour because of how much he has overhauled the party since the Jeremy Corbyn years.
Pointing to last week’s victory in the by-election in Selby & Ainsty, North Yorkshire, one said: “There’s no question that people were voting because they wanted to send the government a message, but we are very much of the view that we were only able to be the repository of those votes because we had changed the Labour party.”
They added that “of course we know we need to do more to set out the positive case for ourselves”, saying that this would begin at the party’s conference in the autumn.
Starmer last week cited the “pretty bleak” mood of Britain as an argument for offering reassurance rather than 1997-style optimism. His team said that “what people are looking for is a party that is sensible, competent and credible”.
Others in the party said they were unbothered by voters’ motivations. “Any party that wins does so because of a mixture of dislike of the other party and like for them. You don’t get your ideal political party on the ballot paper, you get a choice and Labour just needs to be the preferred one,” said one senior party figure.
“Right now there is a sense of depression across the country. People are not ready for great big visions of the future, they don’t believe it, they don’t buy it. If a party says they’ve got a universal panacea for their woes they’ll dismiss it.”
About 11 per cent of 2019 Tory voters are currently planning to vote Labour. Conservative strategists are increasingly focused on the 23 per cent who say they are undecided. They believe that giving these “apathetic Tories” reason to turn out is central to Sunak’s hope of staging an unlikely comeback over the next year.
Meanwhile Labour deny that their entire platform right now is ‘we are not Tories. Similar, yes, but… look we have a different name, ok?’. Well, where’s the stuff that attracts *voters* who are not Tories? Where’s the reasons to be excited? Where’s the ‘things can only get better’ aspect? D:ream didn’t make a song to say ‘things can maybe marginally improve, but we’re not touching that, that or this [pointing at deeply unpopular and punitive Tory fuckups]’
Well of course
Starmer is a boring and too quick to ditch principles for populism. He even said he doesn’t mind being called conservative a few weeks ago, because he believes Labour is small-c conservative.
Nobody’s really looking at Starner thinking gosh this person is so inspirational. They’re just done with the Tories, and FPTP makes it incredibly difficult for another party to get an edge in.
Labour Party slogan 2024;
*”If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”*
*”Our Kier says “There’s no more money left!”*
If the Tories actually put out and see stuck to right wing policies they still have a chance to stop a Labour majority, but the ruling factions of both parties aren’t too dissimilar so I doubt it
Well they certainly aren’t motivated by their policies!
I think that has been pretty obvious to most people aside from hardened Starmer supporters.
Personally, I’m still being driven by hostility to Brexit.
Good luck with “make Brexit work”, Labour.
What was David Cameron’s vision? Or Theresa May’s? Or, for that matter, Tony Blair’s?
People don’t win elections on the strength of some grand vision, they win by being better than the other guys.
To be fair
We have had *Call me Dave* with the most idiotic decision to call a referendum, thinking he would easily win it….and lost.
Then we had May, who was at war with a big chunk of her party
Then we had Johnson, who thought everything was a joke and that responsibility was a forigen language.
Then we had mad as a box of frogs, Truss, who crashed and burned in less than 100 days.
Now we have Sunak who tries to pretend he is one of us despite it being obvious that he enjoys the private jets and will be off to his Californian mansion as soon as he is out of Downing St.
The shocking thing is that it has taken so long for the worm to turn!
Well a lot of Tory voters were driven by a hatred of Jeremy Corbyn last election. You take what you can get.
Try being less shit and I’ll try being less hostile.
Starmer’s Labour won’t actively fuck us over like the Tories will. Starmer’s Labour will do little to improve our daily lives though. Starmer will maintain the status quo and be very cautious before committing to any action that might be seen as even remotely left wing, so not to scare off disillusioned Tory voters. If he wins the next election, he will one of the most unforgettable Prime Ministers in history as he will do little in the way of policy because of where he has positioned himself.
Labour have no identity but this Tory government is the worst bunch of self serving takers I’ve ever seen in government in my 50 years
At this point most voters are motivated by ‘hostility towards government’. That’s mostly because they are *absolutely, objectively utterly terrible.* Every Prime Minister ~~since~~ including Cameron has been worse than Anthony Eden and the last ~~two~~ three have been worse than Lord North. ~~Parliamentary standards~~ Standards in general have been chucked out of the window of a car moving at 120 miles an hour driving directly over a cliff.
Nobody is paid anywhere near what they’re worth on the world labour market and people with sodding postgraduate degrees and highly responsible jobs are paid £1 over minimum wage. Our beaches and rivers are full of chemicals and shit. Energy costs both arms, a leg and half a liver. Houses cost the other leg, another arm and a lung. Businesses are going under faster than a badly-built submarine and apparently no crimes are illegal anymore. I mean, I could go on… I could write another thousand words and only mention each individual, enormous, government-toppling catastrophic failure of the Tory governments of the last 13 years in a sentence of ten words or less and I would still not have captured every egregious, cruel or bloody stupid thing they’ve done.
The conservative are, to use their own language, “a broad church” that nearly all right wing voters go to as there isn’t a realistic right wing alternative.
The non-right vote is split between the Lib Dem’s, greens and labour.
That’s why we always get the tories and under
Fptp this won’t change and labour won’t change it because if they did they’d be in power more but in coalition which the selfserving cunts won’t want.
Almost nothing Labour is saying or doing makes me want to vote for them, but I’ll vote for them because I’ve had enough of the Tories.
If Labour wins the next GE it won’t be because people want them as the next government, it will be because people NEED them to be (big difference)
Voted Labour solidly for over 20 years I will not be voting for Starmer’s Labour. I will not support what he has done to the party and democracy in this country by modelling Labour on the Conservatives.
18 comments
(Article)
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A majority of Labour voters are repelled by the Conservatives rather than attracted by Sir Keir Starmer, polling finds.
About 75 per cent of those switching from the Tories to Labour say their main motivation is unhappiness with the government rather than enthusiasm for opposition plans.
Conservative voters are barely more enthused by Rishi Sunak, with 45 per cent saying they mainly want to oppose Labour, against 44 per cent saying they back what the Tories stand for.
With both party leaders planning to set out their plans for the country after parliament’s summer break, YouGov polling for The Times suggests disapproval of the alternative is driving support for both men.
Labour has a 20-point poll lead but the dramatic shift towards the party in recent months appears to be a consequence of hostility towards the government at a time of rising prices, higher mortgage payments and economic uncertainty.
Of those planning to vote Labour, 51 per cent said this was because “I am unhappy with the Conservatives and want to oppose them”, against 45 per cent saying they were backing the party “because I support what they stand for and want to support them”.
The trend is particularly pronounced among women and younger voters. Some 54 per cent of female Labour voters say they mainly want rid of the Conservatives, rising to 66 per cent of those aged 18 to 24.
Among those who voted Conservative in 2019 and now plan to vote Labour 73 per cent said their main reason was disillusionment with the Tories. Just 18 per cent of these Tory switchers say they are mainly attracted by Starmer’s offer. Even those who backed Labour in 2019 are split, with 51 per cent sticking with the party out of enthusiasm and 46 per cent motivated mainly by dislike of the Tories.
Starmer’s allies say that even if voters are unhappy with the government, they are only willing to switch to Labour because of how much he has overhauled the party since the Jeremy Corbyn years.
Pointing to last week’s victory in the by-election in Selby & Ainsty, North Yorkshire, one said: “There’s no question that people were voting because they wanted to send the government a message, but we are very much of the view that we were only able to be the repository of those votes because we had changed the Labour party.”
They added that “of course we know we need to do more to set out the positive case for ourselves”, saying that this would begin at the party’s conference in the autumn.
Starmer last week cited the “pretty bleak” mood of Britain as an argument for offering reassurance rather than 1997-style optimism. His team said that “what people are looking for is a party that is sensible, competent and credible”.
Others in the party said they were unbothered by voters’ motivations. “Any party that wins does so because of a mixture of dislike of the other party and like for them. You don’t get your ideal political party on the ballot paper, you get a choice and Labour just needs to be the preferred one,” said one senior party figure.
“Right now there is a sense of depression across the country. People are not ready for great big visions of the future, they don’t believe it, they don’t buy it. If a party says they’ve got a universal panacea for their woes they’ll dismiss it.”
About 11 per cent of 2019 Tory voters are currently planning to vote Labour. Conservative strategists are increasingly focused on the 23 per cent who say they are undecided. They believe that giving these “apathetic Tories” reason to turn out is central to Sunak’s hope of staging an unlikely comeback over the next year.
Lol. I [literally last night](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/15ay9bt/polls_show_conservative_party_trails_labour_on/jttvric/) told someone this. That people are planning to vote Labour purely because muppets on the internet are telling them they have no choice if they want rid of the Tories. Looks like the polling supports that.
Meanwhile Labour deny that their entire platform right now is ‘we are not Tories. Similar, yes, but… look we have a different name, ok?’. Well, where’s the stuff that attracts *voters* who are not Tories? Where’s the reasons to be excited? Where’s the ‘things can only get better’ aspect? D:ream didn’t make a song to say ‘things can maybe marginally improve, but we’re not touching that, that or this [pointing at deeply unpopular and punitive Tory fuckups]’
Well of course
Starmer is a boring and too quick to ditch principles for populism. He even said he doesn’t mind being called conservative a few weeks ago, because he believes Labour is small-c conservative.
Nobody’s really looking at Starner thinking gosh this person is so inspirational. They’re just done with the Tories, and FPTP makes it incredibly difficult for another party to get an edge in.
Labour Party slogan 2024;
*”If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”*
*”Our Kier says “There’s no more money left!”*
If the Tories actually put out and see stuck to right wing policies they still have a chance to stop a Labour majority, but the ruling factions of both parties aren’t too dissimilar so I doubt it
Well they certainly aren’t motivated by their policies!
I think that has been pretty obvious to most people aside from hardened Starmer supporters.
Personally, I’m still being driven by hostility to Brexit.
Good luck with “make Brexit work”, Labour.
What was David Cameron’s vision? Or Theresa May’s? Or, for that matter, Tony Blair’s?
People don’t win elections on the strength of some grand vision, they win by being better than the other guys.
To be fair
We have had *Call me Dave* with the most idiotic decision to call a referendum, thinking he would easily win it….and lost.
Then we had May, who was at war with a big chunk of her party
Then we had Johnson, who thought everything was a joke and that responsibility was a forigen language.
Then we had mad as a box of frogs, Truss, who crashed and burned in less than 100 days.
Now we have Sunak who tries to pretend he is one of us despite it being obvious that he enjoys the private jets and will be off to his Californian mansion as soon as he is out of Downing St.
The shocking thing is that it has taken so long for the worm to turn!
Well a lot of Tory voters were driven by a hatred of Jeremy Corbyn last election. You take what you can get.
Try being less shit and I’ll try being less hostile.
Starmer’s Labour won’t actively fuck us over like the Tories will. Starmer’s Labour will do little to improve our daily lives though. Starmer will maintain the status quo and be very cautious before committing to any action that might be seen as even remotely left wing, so not to scare off disillusioned Tory voters. If he wins the next election, he will one of the most unforgettable Prime Ministers in history as he will do little in the way of policy because of where he has positioned himself.
Labour have no identity but this Tory government is the worst bunch of self serving takers I’ve ever seen in government in my 50 years
At this point most voters are motivated by ‘hostility towards government’. That’s mostly because they are *absolutely, objectively utterly terrible.* Every Prime Minister ~~since~~ including Cameron has been worse than Anthony Eden and the last ~~two~~ three have been worse than Lord North. ~~Parliamentary standards~~ Standards in general have been chucked out of the window of a car moving at 120 miles an hour driving directly over a cliff.
Nobody is paid anywhere near what they’re worth on the world labour market and people with sodding postgraduate degrees and highly responsible jobs are paid £1 over minimum wage. Our beaches and rivers are full of chemicals and shit. Energy costs both arms, a leg and half a liver. Houses cost the other leg, another arm and a lung. Businesses are going under faster than a badly-built submarine and apparently no crimes are illegal anymore. I mean, I could go on… I could write another thousand words and only mention each individual, enormous, government-toppling catastrophic failure of the Tory governments of the last 13 years in a sentence of ten words or less and I would still not have captured every egregious, cruel or bloody stupid thing they’ve done.
The conservative are, to use their own language, “a broad church” that nearly all right wing voters go to as there isn’t a realistic right wing alternative.
The non-right vote is split between the Lib Dem’s, greens and labour.
That’s why we always get the tories and under
Fptp this won’t change and labour won’t change it because if they did they’d be in power more but in coalition which the selfserving cunts won’t want.
Almost nothing Labour is saying or doing makes me want to vote for them, but I’ll vote for them because I’ve had enough of the Tories.
If Labour wins the next GE it won’t be because people want them as the next government, it will be because people NEED them to be (big difference)
Voted Labour solidly for over 20 years I will not be voting for Starmer’s Labour. I will not support what he has done to the party and democracy in this country by modelling Labour on the Conservatives.