New Savanta and LabourList MRP poll: Labour on course for historic landslide

Labour are on course for a landslide of 198 seats, new polling from Savanta and LabourList suggests.

The polling, which was was revealed at a LabourList fringe by Savanta director Chris Hopkins this morning, would see Labour with a bigger majority than the party won in 1997.

Hopkins told the fringe that Conservative figures including Lee Anderson, Penny Mordaunt, and Jacob Rees Mogg are all at risk of losing their seats. 

Hopkins was speaking alongside the Progressive Policy Institute’s Claire Ainsley and Labour Together director Josh Simons at Labour conference in Liverpool. Ainsley was formerly executive director of policy to Keir Starmer.

Hopkins said this is the first time Savanta has used the multilevel regression and post-stratification polling methodology on new constituency boundaries.

He noted that pollsters have had 2015 in mind, saying “we should have seen it coming, Ed Miliband’s personal ratings were a lot lower than Cameron’s, economic competence was a lot higher for [the] Conservatives.” 

Hopkins also said ReformUK’s announcement that it will be standing against every Conservative MP at the next election is “very significant for Labour, and could make things easier for Labour to win in tight Lab-Con marginals”. However Hopkins noted the scale of the challenge for Labour, saying it required “a huge swing to get a majority of one”.

@LabourList How Labour wins – and how to read the polls, with @ChrisHopkins92, @claire_ainsley, and @joshsimonstweet #LabConf23 #LabourConference23 pic.twitter.com/bB7soRP1g0

— LabourList (@LabourList) October 9, 2023

Ainsley said underneath these figures there are “worrying signs for Labour”, pointing out that polling shows working-class voters “leaving the Tories in droves”, but not coming to Labour as quickly. 

“We should be troubled that more are not saying that they are going to vote Labour yet… a third of voters said ‘I don’t even know if I’m going to vote, and if I do who I’m going to vote for’. That is not landslide territory,” said Ainsley. 

Ainsley also focussed on the significance of security, arguing that it was not just economic but psychological security that was important. “We have to take seriously people’s concerns about border crossing… security not just in the economy but on our national borders”. 

Simons discussed strategy, arguing that for Labour to achieve a landslide majority it had to focus on “de-risking” its image “so Conservative voters have permission to stay at home”.

Simons said Labour had to tap into the worries and aspirations of working people. “The bar is unbelievably low… hope is grounded and simple. We need to tell a story of hope, and talk specifically and concretely how we are going to do that,” said Simons. 

Simons argued that Labour had to convince the British public on three core themes: that it is backing Britain, that it is able to make the tough decisions, and that it can be trusted to run the economy. 

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