Half of 2024 Labour Voters Have Gone Elsewhere, Party Privately Tells MPs
3 min read
Exclusive: Half of voters who backed Labour at the last general election have deserted the party, according to internal polling shared with Labour MPs.
According to the research, carried out by the party and seen by PoliticsHome, of those who have gone elsewhere, 14 per cent say they are undecided how they would vote.
On Labour's right flank, 11 per cent of people who supported Labour last year now back Reform UK, while three per cent would vote for the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, on its left flank, nine per cent say they would vote for the Liberal Democrats, while six per cent would back Zack Polanski's Green Party, and four per cent would vote for independents.
The figures suggest Labour's lost 2024 vote is broadly split between the right and the left.
Senior Labour figures have shared the findings with backbench MPs in recent weeks as the party leadership tries to recover its position in the opinion polls.
Keir Starmer's party trails Nigel Farage's Reform in the polls by an average of around 13 per cent, according to Politico's opinion poll tracker, and is braced for bruising local elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England in May.
The internal polling obtained by PoliticsHome demonstrates the electoral challenge facing Labour as it looks to retain power at the next general election.
While Reform has maintained significant leads over Labour for many months, support for the Greens has also risen since the election of "eco-populist" Polanski in September. Your Party, fronted by former Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, also poses another threat to Labour's left.
There in figures in No 10 who believe that voters on the left who have ditched Labour since last year will ultimately vote for the party at the next general election to stop Farage becoming prime minister.
However, critics of this approach say it underestimates the willingness of voters to take their support elsewhere.
Alex Sobel, Labour MP for Leeds Central and Headingley and member of Labour-aligned group, Mainstream, told PoliticsHome: "This polling lays bare the existential threat facing Labour and, more importantly, facing the country if we fail to win back the public."
He added: "We risk paving the way for a Reform-led government.
"There isn't much time left to set a new course before the public's view of Labour is baked in. Labour must reconnect with the mainstream of the party and let its principles shine to speak to the country once more."
It comes as Prime Minister Starmer faces fresh pressure on his leadership, prompted by hostile briefing against Health Secretary Wes Streeting by unnamed No 10 sources on Tuesday night.
Starmer on Wednesday came to Streeting's defence, telling PMQs that any attacks on members of his Cabinet are "unacceptable".
Earlier in the day, Streeting categorically denied the anonymous claims that he is preparing a bid to challenge Starmer, accusing those behind them of “watching too much Celebrity Traitors” and calling for them to be sacked.
One loyalist Labour MP told PoliticsHome that the events of last night were a "catastrophe" and the last thing the public wants is a "return to the psychodrama we saw under the last government".
Starmer and his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, have hosted Labour MPs in Downing Street in recent weeks as part of a bid to improve relations with the back benches.
