Perhaps one of the big mysteries of the current voting intention landscape is: why aren’t the Liberal Democrats doing better?
The Labour vote has fallen off a cliff, dropping from 35% of the vote in Great Britain at the election last year to just 21% in our latest voting intention poll. At the same time, the Conservatives have also slumped from an already poor 24% to 16%. But the Lib Dems’ vote share has been effectively immobile: the party won 13% of the British vote in 2024, and our latest voting intention figures have them at 14%.
Their rivals’ weakness presents a clear opportunity for the Lib Dems to capitalise. So what’s holding people back? New YouGov polling examines the barriers which stand in the party’s way by asking more than 1,800 Britons who do not currently intend to vote Lib Dem their reasons for not doing so.
Top of the list is a lack of familiarity: 31% of these Britons answer simply that they don’t know enough about the Lib Dems.
A similarly important issue for Ed Davey is the 26% of the public who say that the party’s slim chances of winning an election make them a wasted vote. One in eleven (9%) likewise concerned that the Lib Dems have no chance of winning in their own particular constituency.
One in four (23%) are put off by the belief that the Lib Dems would not be competent in government, and their previous stint in government appears to bother 18% sufficiently for them to list it as a top three reason not for backing them.
Ed Davey himself is less of a concern, with only 9% saying he is a top obstacle to their vote. While some have suggested that the Lib Dem leader’s PR stunts are putting the public off, just six respondents from our sample cared enough about them to write them in to our “Something else” box.
Electability issues are key to those most willing to potentially back the Lib Dems
Of course, not everyone is a viable target for the Lib Dems, as some people’s politics are irreconcilable with the party’s. If we break our sample down by Britons’ prospective willingness to consider backing the party, we can see that the two issues that bother those closest to giving their backing are electability.
Almost four in ten (38%) of those who are not currently voting Lib Dem, but who rate their willingness to consider doing so an 8-10 out of 10, say that one of their top reasons for not doing so is that they have no chance of winning an election and forming a government. One in three (33%) likewise say that the Lib Dems’ inability to win in their own constituency is off-putting to them.
For those who rate their willingness to consider voting Lib Dem a 6-7 out of 10, being able to win an election is again the top concern (40%), but also a lack of awareness: 36% say that not knowing enough about the party is a key reason they wouldn’t back them.
Why haven’t those who backed other parties in 2024 transferred their vote to the Lib Dems?
Electability proves to be the main concern for 2024 Labour voters when it comes to why they wouldn’t switch their vote to the Lib Dems (37%) – hardly a surprise, when we know there is a great deal of tactical voting transfer between the two parties.
The legacy of the coalition years proves to bother Labour (26%) and Green voters (29%) more than the wider public – indeed, this the second most common reason given among Greens, after not knowing enough about the party (35%). Green voters also prove to be notably more likely to say that the Lib Dems are not left wing enough (23%) is a top reason for not supporting them.
For the Conservatives and Reform UK, expectations that the Lib Dems would not be competent in government are most common on their list of top concerns (38-39%).
Results tables coming shortly
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Photo: Getty
