One in five Labour members expect Reform to be largest party

More than 20% of Labour members expect Reform to be the largest party after the next general election, while only 3% expect a large Labour majority, according to polling exclusive to LabourList.

Asked what they expect the result of the next general election to be in a Survation poll of LabourList readers earlier this month, 13% said a hung Parliament with Reform forming the government, 6% said a small Reform majority, and 3% said a large Reform majority. It means a total of 22% who say Nigel Farage’s party will be the largest.

Reform only has five MPs, but has surged in the polls, regularly leading voter intentions if a general election were to be held tomorrow.

Some 29% expect a small Labour majority, and another 31% expect Labour to form the government as the largest party but fall short of a majority in a hung parliament. It means only a total of 63% expect Labour to be the largest party.

Meanwhile the proportion of respondents predicting a small (0.2%) or large (0.1%) Tory majority was so miniscule it rounds down to zero, with just four of the 1,304 respondents expecting any kind of Tory majority. Only another 2.4% expected the Tories to return to power as the largest party in a hung parliament.

While at the last election Reform hoovered up Tory voters, it has come to also be seen as a direct threat to Labour. Our analysis found it took more than four times more Labour seats at the local elections than other parties.

READ MORE: Poll: Do members back coalition or ruling alone if we fail to keep our majority?

Of the almost 200 council seats Labour lost to other parties, Reform UK picked up just over 150, with double-digit gains in Durham, Doncaster, Lancashire, North Northamptonshire and Northumberland.

The figure is more than ten times the number gained by the Greens from Labour, picking up 14 seats. Independent and regional parties gained 12 seats from Labour, eight of those in Lancashire, with the Liberal Democrats gaining ten and the Conservatives two.

Despite Reform’s popularity, separate polling of the public seen by LabourList show that voters still say Keir Starmer makes a better Prime Minister than Nigel Farage would.

The survey by leading pollsters Survation found – after factoring in likelihood to vote, removing undecided voters and those who refused, that 27% of the public would vote for Reform if an election was held tomorrow, compared to 24% for Labour, and 18% for the Conservatives.

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However, when asked who would make the better Prime Minister, 32% of respondents answered Starmer compared to 28% for Farage and just 14% for Kemi Badenoch.

The poll is the latest in a series of regular polls LabourList is publishing in partnership with leading pollsters Survation, a member of the British Polling Council and a Market Research Society Partner.

READ MORE: Rayner and Burnham most popular with Labour members of opposite sex

Survation surveyed 1,304 LabourList readers who also said they were Labour Party members between May 30 and June 1.

Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age, sex, region and 2020 Labour leadership vote, targets for which were derived from the British Election Study and the results of the 2020 leadership election.

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