Just 4% of Reform voters say they are likely to consider voting Labour
Reform UK’s gains in opinion polls and local elections have panicked Labour, who are now attempting to Nigel Farage’s voters with recently announced immigration reforms, among other incentives. The strategy has not sat easy with all in the government, with some warning that it will alienate Labour voters, as well as Lib Dems and Greens who might otherwise tactically vote Labour.
The good news for Labour is that the attempts to appeal to Reform UK voters have clearly been noticed. Nearly half of Britons (48%) believe that they’re trying at least a fair amount to win them over, against 29% who believe Labour are not trying very much or aren’t at all trying to appeal to supporters of Nigel Farage’s party.
The public are divided on whether Labour are or are not trying to appeal to Labour and Conservative voters, with about four in ten standing on each side of the argument for both parties. Fewer think Starmer’s party is attempting to reach out to Lib Dems (27%), Greens (22%) or SNP voters (16%).
Most Reform UK voters (56%) recognise that Starmer is making an attempt to woo them, with similar numbers of voters from all main parties (50-59%) likewise saying Labour are trying to park their tanks on Farage’s lawn.
By contrast, fewer than half of 2024 Labour voters (48%) think that the party they backed last year is still trying to court their vote, and even fewer Lib Dems (32%) and Greens (12%) think Starmer is trying to appeal to them.
The bad news for Labour is that, while Reform UK voters might recognise that they are being flirted with, they are not receptive to the overtures. Just 4% of those who backed Reform UK last year rate their likelihood to consider voting Labour in a future election as a six out of ten or higher, while 79% say they would never consider voting for the party.
This level of rejection has actually increased since last July, when just 50% of Reform UK voters ruled out voting Labour in future.
This creates a situation where Reform UK voters are the voter group most likely to feel Labour are trying to appeal to them, but also the least likely to say they will consider voting Labour in future.
At the same time that Labour appears to be embarking on a forlorn path to attract Reform voters, they appear to be alienating voters to the party’s left that might otherwise be more amenable to backing them.
In particular, the proportion of Green voters saying they would never consider voting Labour has also notably risen since the election, with 27% now saying so, up from 10% in July. At the same time, the number of Greens saying they are likely to consider voting Labour has fallen from 38% to 24%.
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Photo: Getty
