The Labour government is polling at around 21 per cent just more than a year since the general election (Alamy)
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Leading pollster and former president of YouGov Peter Kellner has said that Prime Minister Keir Starmer should ignore the polls and focus on what he thinks is right for the country if he wants Labour to stay in government beyond the next general election.
Just more than a year after a landslide general election victory, Labour’s popularity has fallen sharply.
YouGov’s latest voting intention survey, carried out this week, put Labour on 20 per cent (down from 34 per cent at the 2024 election), with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK out in front on 28 per cent. Starmer’s personal ratings have also taken a major hit since entering office last year.
The Labour government has shown signs that it is growing increasingly anxious about recent polling and the threat of Reform in particular, with Cabinet ministers publicly describing Farage’s party as the real opposition, rather than the Conservatives.
Figures on the left of Labour have also complained about what they describe as No 10 strategists going too far in trying to appeal to right-wing voters in their bid to combat Farage.
Kellner, one of the UK’s best-known pollsters, said Starmer’s government risks repeating policy blunders if it leans too heavily on public opinion surveys. He told PoliticsHome that Labour’s much-criticised decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance last year, later abandoned, showed the danger of being “obedient to polls”.
“Voters are fickle,” said Kellner, speaking ahead of Parliament’s return this week.
“If you do something they like at the time but it doesn’t work, they will still punish you. Your best strategy is to assume you will lose the next election. Do what you think will work, is right for Britain and upholds your values.
“Never let polls influence your decisions. By not worrying about the next election, you will free yourself to take the decisions that give you your best chance of winning it. So forget the polls. Do what you think is right: that’s your best chance of having a good story to tell in 2029.”
Kellner, who was chairman and then president of YouGov between 2001 and 2016, warned that relying too heavily on polls and focus groups could backfire.
“It’s important for politicians to listen to voters – including what the polls tell them,” he explained. “But polls should be used to inform, not instruct.
“Last summer, probably their biggest single unforced error was because the polls and focus groups told them that people thought the winter fuel allowance should go only to those who really need it. So they thought they would save money and win public approval by restricting it to people on welfare.”
He argued that the government had not “probed far enough” into what people actually meant by “only those who need it”, and then discovered that they had cut off many people who the public deemed should be eligible for the benefits.
Kellner said Labour’s polling slump had parallels in recent history, pointing to the governments of Labour’s Harold Wilson and Conservative John Major, who won the 1966 and 1992 elections, respectively, only to then see their ratings fall quickly.
The pollster explained that in both these instances, there were direct economic explanations as to why the governments became quickly unpopular with the British public: in 1992 due to the fallout from Black Wednesday, when Britain fell out of the European exchange mechanism, and in 1967 due to the sterling devaluation from which “Labour never really recovered”.
In this current political context, there is a key difference, Kellner said: the rise of a minor party in the shape of Reform.
In the examples of Wilson and Major, the official opposition was up significantly from the previous years. Just over a year after the general elections of 1992 and 1966, the main opposition party was up by 11 points in 1993 and by six points in 1967.
Now, the landscape is fundamentally different. Reform, a party with just four MPs, consistently leads opinion polls, while the Tory official opposition has shown no signs of recovery since its heavy defeat in July. YouGov this week put Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives on 17 per cent, just one per cent ahead of the Liberal Democrats.
“This time, the main opposition party in parliamentary terms, the Tories, are also down,” Kellner said.
“What you’ve got is Labour doing badly, but remaining ahead of the Conservatives, not by as much as last year, but still significantly.”
Kellner said the Conservatives are now in “more danger of collapsing into third place than they’ve been in my lifetime”.
He added that while his “default position” was that they would still be likely to recover” in the few years before the country next goes to the polls, it was “perfectly possible” that Reform could replace the Tories as the main opposition party by the next general election.
If immigration remains the dominant political issue on the right, he believes the Conservatives will struggle to hold back Farage’s party.
“If the key question on the right in 2029 is who’s toughest on immigration, then people are going to vote for the real thing, Reform, rather than the pale imitation, as voters will see the Tories.”
Kellner also warned that the dynamics between the Conservatives and Reform could determine Labour’s electoral fortunes, due to the nature of the First Past The Post voting system.
“Suppose Labour ends up on 30 per cent at the next election, and the Tories and Reform win a combined share of 44 per cent. If they split evenly – 22 per cent each – Labour is likely to have an overall majority,” he said.
“But if the Con-Reform vote divides, say, 30–14 in either direction, Labour will fall short and may not be the largest party. The closer Con and Reform are to each other in 2029, the better for Labour; for either to trounce the other would be very bad news for Labour.”
The next test for all the major parties will be the round of local elections next year.
“There will be a lot of important signals,” Kellner said.
“Has Reform made inroads into London, for example, or have the Tories hung on as the main non-Labour Party in London, will Reform take control of many more councils?”
But he cautioned that the narrative could depend as much on how the parties manage expectations as the results themselves.
Asked which party leader was more vulnerable if the results go badly, Kellner said: “It is more likely to be Badenoch than Starmer, because Starmer is Prime Minister, he does have a big majority in the House of Commons, there’s not yet any sign of an anxious and ambitious rival.
“Whereas the Tories are down to 121 seats, Robert Jenrick is standing in the wings, and I’m not sure James Cleverly has given up all hope of coming back.”
Next year’s devolved elections in Scotland and Wales could also bring fresh challenges for both Labour and the Conservatives.
“I don’t think Reform will be the government in Cardiff,” Kellner said.
“It may be slightly awkward, but I think there will be an anti-Reform coalition, which might be complicated with Labour, the Greens, Plaid Cymru, possibly the Conservatives.”
In Scotland, he said Labour risks losing ground. “The SNP has clearly picked up support since last summer. Labour has lost support, and I would expect the SNP to be the largest party.”
That, he warned, would add to the pressure on Starmer’s leadership. “Just how badly Labour do in Scotland and Wales and London goes to what level of pressure that puts on Starmer.”
While Reform threatens the future of both Labour and the Conservatives, Kellner believes that the greatest danger for Starmer is not simply losing support, but losing sight of what the party stands for.
