Poll reveals voting intentions of Labour members for NEC election

Abdi Duale and Jess Barnard are set to top first preference votes in Labour’s NEC elections, according to a new poll for LabourList.

Polling conducted by Survation found that Labour members jointly ranked Barnard and Duale as their top choice for the party’s national executive committee, with around an eighth of the first preference vote each.

Two of Duale’s fellow Labour to Win candidates feature close behind, with Angela Davies and Peter Mason attracting 11 percent support among first preference votes.

According to the poll, Mainstream’s Jovan Owusu-Nepaul and Kerry Postlewhite will receive ten percent each in first preferences, while Cat Arnold would receive six percent – despite receiving the most CLP nominations.

When preferences are taken into consideration, all three candidates for the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance and Mainstream, as well as three of Labour to Win’s four candidates, look set to be elected to the nine CLP seats on the NEC up for election.

More than half (59 percent) of members polled said they were certain to vote in the NEC election, compared to just four percent who told Survation they would not be casting a ballot.

Abdi Duale was the first black man to be elected to Labour’s NEC in 2022 and was re-elected in 2024. Duale previously served as a party organiser and has promised to improve the diversity of the party’s candidates, as well as strengthen Labour’s campaigning operation.

Like Duale, Jessica Barnard was also first elected to the NEC in 2022 and re-elected in 2024 – both times being elected in the first round of voting. Barnard had a suspension from the party lifted last month after a seven-month investigation ended with no further action. Barnard is among several NEC candidates to back a statement calling for “rebuilding basic democracy, pluralism and fair process within our party”.

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Emma Burnell, editor of LabourList, said: “These results remind us what a broad party Labour is. It looks as though candidates from the three established slates – representing three very different traditions within the party – are in poll position. Much may change between now and the final result, but, as it stands, we may see an NEC CLP divsion that is not dominated by any one faction. How they – and the leadership – then approach that will tell us much about how the non-factional nature of the Party Burnham has advocated for will play out in practice.”

Survation, a member of the British Polling Council and a Market Research Society Partner, surveyed 812 readers of LabourList who also said they were Labour Party members between July 24 and 27.

Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age, sex, region, 2020 leadership vote and 2025 deputy leadership vote. Targets for weighting were drawn from the British Election Study and the results of the leadership and deputy leadership elections.

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