It is no secret that voters delivered Labour a stunning majority at the 2024 general election not out of any particular love for the party or its leadership, but out of a laser-focused, burning, desire to remove the Conservatives in the most comprehensive way possible.
As such, 2024 featured probably (as far as we can tell, from aggregate data) the largest amount of tactical voting ever witnessed at a British election.
Time and time again the exact same ‘type’ of voter (e.g. age, education, class) would vote entirely differently, seat to seat, depending on the tactical situation – specifically, by following whatever was the optimum route to remove the Conservative incumbent.
A degree educated, young professional living in Hitchin would vote Labour, while her de facto clone down the road in Harpenden would vote Liberal Democrat. The result in both constituencies – the removal of an incumbent Tory, the election of a new MP from a new party.
Repeated up and down the country, Liberal Democrat and Labour candidates enjoyed strong levels of this tactical support from each other’s voter base – plus voters from other parties too, particularly the Greens – as they flipped 242 Conservative seats between them.
But what relevance does tactical voting in 2024 have to politics now, and the politics of a Labour government?
Namely, because it is quite evident that an ongoing calculation with Labour’s strategic arm concludes that voters who backed them in 2024 but are now currently supporting the Liberal Democrats, Greens, and other progressive parties will return once more when it matters.
At the next election, the argument goes, they will have to choose between a Labour government, or Nigel Farage as prime minister. And, it is believed, for that type of voter, there will only be one choice. One outcome.
There is absolutely plenty of logic to this thinking – and it is a model of campaigning (“if not for us, vote against our opponents”) which has been successfully used plenty of times in the part. But the polling data we have right now suggests that we can already see evidence of tactical re-squeezing happening in favour of the Liberal Democrats but not Labour.
Since the 2024 election, the voter coalitions of almost all political parties have changed to varying degrees. And, crucial to the calculation noted above, while the Liberal Democrats look to be continuing to enjoy tactical support where they need it most, Labour most certainly are not.
According to YouGov’s 17,000 strong recent vote intention survey, Labour are hanging on to only around half of the voters who backed them in last year’s election (51%). Around one-in-ten of their 2024 voters are now supporting one of the Greens, Reform UK, or the Liberal Democrats.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats are holding on to 62% of their 2024 support, losing significantly less of their successful coalition to other parties, but nonetheless see 7% of their previous voters now going to Labour and 6% to the Greens.
Contrast the dispersion of previous supporters to say Reform UK, who are holding on to 84% of their 2024 voters, and the Greens, who hold on to almost 7-in-10, and we quickly realise that Labour in particular have a leaky ship. The Conservatives also struggle, with again only around half of their former voters still staying loyal to the party today.
From this evidence, we can surmise that a fair degree of tactical unravelling may be occurring on both sides; both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have seen large numbers of their previous voters slip away, with significant switching between them (and to the Greens).
But two crucial things dictate extent to which this unravelling damages either party’s current seat-winning prospects – and, in my view, should shape our expectations for tactical voting moving forwards.
First, there is the different extent to which both parties are getting ‘topped up’ by winning over voters of other parties. The Liberal Democrats are stable in headline vote intention polling compared to 2024, while Labour are down by around 10 points. The fact that the Lib Dems are offsetting their leaks but Labour are not is important.
But perhaps what matters most is the geography of this change in support since 2024 – as evidenced by YouGov’s first MRP projection of the current parliament.
In that projection, Labour would be down by no fewer than 233 seats compared to 2024 if an election were being held right now, finishing on a record low (since 1935) of 178. The Liberal Democrats, despite significant shifts in their own voter coalition, would go up in number to 91, becoming the third largest party of British politics for the first time since 2010 as the Conservatives drop far beneath them.
Ed Davey’s party are, according to the YouGov MRP, consolidating their impressive 2024 gains in an equally impressive way now. Specifically, they are currently holding on to all but three seats they won last year, and then winning an extra 12 to grow their total by nine.
Labour meanwhile are losing well over half their seats.
Which means that wherever the Liberal Democrats are losing voters to Labour and the Greens, it is not in the places which actually hurt them.
This is in direct and huge contrast to Labour. Starmer’s party are, according to the YouGov MRP, currently losing 194 seats to Reform UK. Across those seats, if we were to add together the Liberal Democrat and Green vote shares to that of Labour, they would fend off Reform and hold the seat in all but five.
We can, based on this evidence, reasonably conclude that not only has Labour’s vote eroded far and fast, but it has done so in all the wrong places. Their support has fragmented in the worst possible way.
Putting that particular humpty-dumpty back together again is going to prove an almighty challenge ahead of the next election.
Now, the contexts for the two parties are of course completely different – Labour are in government, dealing with the cost of governing (to their popularity) that hits almost every party charged with office.
The Liberal Democrats are in opposition, have no record to defend, and are benefitting from a further decline in the fortunes of their main targets for new seats – the Conservatives.
But it is quite telling that even though almost one-third of previous Lib Dem voters do not currently intend to vote for them again now, they are still holding and winning enough new voters in all the right places to defend what they have in terms of seats and advance some more.
Labour, who are effectively relying on the same strategy, are almost seeing the opposite.
Patrick English
Director of Political Analytics
YouGov
