Almost half of members would back coalition at next election, poll finds

More than two in five Labour members would like the party to go into coalition if Keir Starmer fails to win a majority at the next election, polling has revealed.

Exclusive polling for LabourList conducted by Survation found that 45% would want to see the party enter into a coalition of some variety in such circumstances, while 36% would rather see Labour seek informal support from other parties.

Just over one in ten (13%) of members polled would want Labour to govern alone in a minority government.

Of those who would want to see Labour enter into coalition, more than half (53%) would want to seek an agreement with the Liberal Democrats, while just six percent would want Labour to pursue a coalition deal with the SNP. Some 41% of those who would want a coalition in such circumstances backed a deal with other parties.

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It comes as Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey refused to rule out the prospect of a coalition deal with Labour at the next general election.

When asked whether he would rule out a coalition to keep Nigel Farage from entering government, Davey said: “What I want to do is make sure we have as many Liberal Democrat seats and Liberal Democrat votes at the next election.”

However, a straw poll on the question during a Q&A with Davey at their party conference last weekend saw only a fraction of those in the audience raise their hand to say they would support a Lib Dem-Labour coalition.

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.

Survation surveyed 1,021 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between August 5 and August 9.

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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