Voters firmly rejected the Conservatives on Thursday. But they far from flocked to Labour instead.
It is impossible to overstate the scale of the disaster that befell the Conservative Party on Thursday. It won only 24 per cent of the vote in Great Britain. Its previous worst performance was 29 per cent – and that was way back in 1832.
The outcome was far worse than the 31.5 per cent the party won when it was last turfed out of office by the electorate in 1997. Indeed, the Conservative tally was even lower than the 28 per cent to which Labour fell in 1983 when voters rejected a manifesto that one of the party’s MPs called “the longest suicide note in history”.
The timeline of party support during the last parliament points very firmly to what led many voters to want to call time on the Conservative regime. The first cause was “partygate”. The Conservatives were never consistently behind Labour in the polls until the first stories emerged in December 2021 that “gatherings” had taken place in Downing St during the Covid-19 pandemic. As soon as the story broke, Tory support fell. By January 2022 it was down to 32 per cent, compared with 39 per cent the previous October.
The party was trailing Labour for the first time. A public that in many instances had given up and suffered much during the pandemic was shocked by the more relaxed attitude to social distancing that prevailed in 10 Downing St – and was offended by the apparent lack of honesty about what had taken place. That reaction was, of course, eventually shared some months later by Boris Johnson’s parliamentary colleagues.
The second cause was Liz Truss’s “fiscal event”. When she entered 10 Downing St, Tory support stood at 31 per cent. By the time she left, it was down to 25 per cent. All post-war “market crises” have undermined the economic credibility of the incumbent government, and 2019 Tory voters who were doubtful about the country’s economic future were now very unwilling to back the party again. Ideology played a part in these disasters. Some Tories had sincere doubts about the legitimacy of the controls on people’s everyday lives that were imposed during the pandemic. Liz Truss and her colleagues genuinely believed that lower taxes would rescue Britain’s flatlining economy.
But as the party debates whether to aim for the ideological centre or to head to the Right, it would be wise to recognise that, for the public at least, it was the perceived lack of integrity and competence that accompanied these two events that mattered. The party will never regain voters’ trust and confidence unless, and until, it has restored its reputation for integrity and competence.
The party’s fate was, though, made worse by the rise of Reform. Between October last year and April this year support for Reform nearly doubled to 12 per cent. Nigel Farage’s decision to take on the leadership of Reform – the only decisive event during the election campaign – compounded the problem.
While Tory politicians opted to concentrate their firepower on Labour, 2019 Tory voters were increasingly heading for Reform. According to the final polls, while 15 per cent of 2019 Tory supporters switched to Labour, as many as 26 per cent backed Reform. Just 4 per cent of 2019 Labour and 5 per cent of 2019 Liberal Democrat voters voted Reform.
This pattern was clearly reflected in the results. Conservative support was down on average by 31 points in constituencies where support for Reform was up by 18 points or more on that for the Brexit Party in 2019. But where the Reform vote was up by only nine points or less, the Tory vote was down by just 11 points. Neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats, in contrast, fared worse where Reform did particularly well. And, of course, most of the seats where Reform advanced most were seats the Conservatives were trying to defend, not least because the Brexit Party did not fight Tory-held seats in 2019.
Those who backed Reform were, of course, mostly pro-Brexit and concerned about immigration. As many as 29 per cent of those who would currently vote to stay out of the EU voted Reform, almost as many as backed the Conservatives (32 per cent), thereby helping to destroy the coalition of Leave voters that gave Boris Johnson victory in 2019. But it would be a mistake to assume that perceptions of integrity and competence did not matter for these voters too. For example, support for Reform first started to rise in the immediate wake of the Liz Truss fiscal debacle. And although, according to the British Election Study, 29 per cent of those 2019 Tory voters who had switched to Labour by the time the election was called reckoned the economy had got a lot worse in the last 12 months, so also did 23 per cent of those who had switched to Reform.
Not much change in level of support
Labour would, of course, dispute this account of the downfall of the Conservative government. They would argue that voters switched to Labour because the “change” that Sir Keir Starmer enforced within his party convinced voters Labour could be relied upon the change and improve the governance of the country.
Yet the one thing that Sir Keir Starmer did not do was to secure much change in his party’s level of support.
In Wales, where Labour runs the devolved government, its support fell by four points. In England the increase was just half a per cent. Only in Scotland, where its support was up by 17 points, did voters turn afresh to the party in large numbers. However, there the party’s support was boosted by the travails of the SNP, which were down 15 points. Meanwhile, two in five voters, a near-record stayed at home. This was especially the case in Labour held seats. In short, despite all the talk of a changed Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer was barely any more successful in winning votes than Jeremy Corbyn had been in 2019.
Meanwhile, he was well short of his predecessor’s 41 per cent support in 2017, let alone the 44 per cent Sir Tony Blair won in 1997. In England and Wales, Labour only gained support where the party appeared best-placed locally to defeat the Conservatives. In seats where it started off in second place to a Tory incumbent its vote increased on average by six points. Elsewhere in England where the opportunity to turf out a Tory did not exist, Labour’s support was markedly down – on average by five points.
The party fell back especially heavily in seats where more than 10 per cent identify as Muslim, losing on average as much as 12 per cent of the vote. It even lost four supposedly safe seats with large Muslim populations to independent candidates who were standing on the Gaza issue.
While the Conservatives seek ways to heal their wounds, Labour now has to embark on the task of taking over a country whose economy and public services are struggling. While voters have sent a clear message that they are looking for better government, many are far from convinced that Labour can provide what they seek.
Meanwhile, in winning few votes but many seats Labour now finds itself with nearly 100 MPs who enjoy majorities of 10 points or less. They could soon become restive if Sir Keir Starmer cannot persuade voters he is indeed providing the better government they seek.
Sir John Curtice is professor of politics, University of Strathclyde, and senior fellow, National Centre for Social Research and The UK in a Changing Europe. He is also co-host of the Trendy podcast.
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