Poll Pulse #2 : You have to Fight for the Right
A weekly series focusing on the data and polls of the election
For an election that has been rather drab, at least in determining the likely winner, the last week has had a series of events that have cut through to the electorate. Most notably, a certain Mr Farage has decided that any job working for Trump in the US could not rival the potential opportunity of becoming the new face of the right in the UK. On the turn of the month, Farage stood in as leader of the Reform party, taking over from Richard Tice, and submitting himself as the candidate for Clacton.
Reform, before the Farage bounce, appeared to be somewhat languishing in the polls. The party breaks from many major parties as it offers a very different treatment towards its manifesto as its early drafts of the ‘Our Contract With You’ are already made publicly available, despite the official manifesto release not scheduled until the 17th of June. This meant that it was stuck, without much of an ability to create a positive shift for itself that a manifesto may have presented, and sitting on the 14% that it had consistently appeared to pull from the local elections. Such a position would likely return the party 0 seats in a similar situation to UKIP’s seatless campaign of 2015, where it achieved 12.6% of the vote.
But it wasn’t simply Reform who were performing badly. The Conservatives, it seems, have done their best efforts to make the worst of an already awful situation, therefore making it very easy for Farage to capitalise. Rather than presenting Reform as a realistic candidate to form the government, even if they know it is unlikely, like the Lib Dems, Reform UK is being presented as an alternative for the right. Farage has spoken in depth on the possibility of leading a merged party of the two, having clearly claimed that Labour are on their way to comfortably win the election. This isn’t merely an egotistical pipe dream - Mogg, Patel and Johnson have mused about uniting him with the Tory party as well. This angle, and the choice to target the Conservatives has been the most interesting aspect of Farage’s return and Reform’s new political strategy.
To say that this move is damning for the Conservatives is quite an understatement. The Conservatives have historically held a highly effective vote, the most of any of the national parties. But the great weakness of an effective vote means that a dip can be truly catastrophic, plummeting you into the abyss. And based on current polling results, this downfall has appeared to have materialised. The most recent poll done by YouGov on the 13th June, who have recently shifted their methodology on their regular polls in a way which typically rewards the Conservatives more than a nowcaster (for more of an understanding on how that works, read last week's piece), actually places Reform UK ahead of the Conservatives. The Conservatives fall to 3rd place, with not much distance separating them and the Conservatives. This may have been caused by the horrendous handling of D-Day over the last week alongside a lack-lustre manifesto, but if it does stick, it would suggest a true infraction point in the right. It could potentially be the birth of a new era, with a reconfiguration of the right similar to Canada 1993. It is important to recognise that the YouGov, in their methodology change, now have all of the traditionally smaller parties at the top of their range, breaking from the wider consensus. This means that the Labour vote, for the first time in at least a year, is dipping below the 40% rate.
Even if you ignore the YouGov poll, the Conservative party appears to be a sinking ship, damned to its end. A recent JL Partner poll has shown that only half of the 2019 voters have said that they would vote for the Conservatives again. The party is shattering, with their June 10th poll saying only 4 in 10 likely to continue voting Tory.
When these results are applied to any myriad of the predictors, it begins to paint a cataclysmic picture for the Conservatives, not only relegated below the 100 seat mark, but failing to become the leaders of the opposition, a job which would then be taken by the Liberal Democrats even without tactical voting. So we are left with the possibility of a rallied, second place Reform party who are vastly underrepresented and a Liberal Democrat party riding the wave into LOTO. This election had already begun to ring the bell of proportional representation more seriously than many elections before it, but the outcome which appears to Reform could lead to a shift in the UK’s entire electoral system. Because of the fact that with 3 weeks left to go, some serious movement is going to have to occur if the incoming government is going to change, eyes are turning to 2029, and the risk of the rise of the far right.
Leader Popularity
This may appear a bit of a step down from the potential system changing results of the party based polling, but because we touched on it last week, I thought I would at least offer some form of insight. With TV debates properly up and running, the public appear to be shifting their views somewhat on the two main leaders, but (shock horror) not in the way that the Conservatives would have wanted. As the graph below shows, Sunak is continuing to become increasingly unfavourable, whereas Starmer has seen a rise in his own popularity.
As they are potentially polling as the 2nd largest party, it’s only right to also analyse the popularity of Farage - who appears divisive, with 29% having favourable opinions of him, and 61 having unfavourable. However, he is the 3rd most known, beyond the leaders of the two major parties and also the most popular face on the right, with net favourability which outstrips Sunak.
Conclusion
The race for the premiership appears to be somewhat extinguished, with an arising general consensus of a Labour win, shown by the Conservative strategy, and from explicit call outs from essentially all major parties (Greens, Reform). But the fate of the right wing, and the electoral system that we may find ourselves in at the next election is still firmly up for grabs. This election may prove to merely be the amuse-bouche before the meal of the election in 5 years time.
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