Martin Baxter
Founder of Electoral CalculusAt the last General Election, the Conservatives won with a big majority. There were three main reasons for this: the popularity of Boris Johnson, the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn, and the desire of many voters to get Brexit done. Additionally, the Conservatives benefited from the technical advantage under the FPTP system that the centre-left vote was split between three parties, but the centre-right vote was broadly united under the Tories.
But “this world is not for aye” and everything has now changed. Both Johnson and Corbyn have left the stage, and Brexit got done. Even the continuing centre-left split has been balanced by a new split on the right as Reform UK has gained many disaffected Conservative voters.
It would be a mistake to think that the upcoming election will have a similar outcome to the previous election. The next one really will be different. To get an idea of how different, we need to look at the best scientific measure of public attitudes – opinion polls – and to study them in a sophisticated manner.
Letโs start with the basics
The chart shows the monthly average of opinion polls since the last election. The Conservative support had a temporary boost during the COVID-19 health crisis but has been steadily declining since the summer of 2021. Conservative popularity went below 30 per cent for the first time a year later when Johnson left office, and it has not been above that level since. Even now, current Conservative popularity is barely above the low point measured at their nadir when Liz Truss was Prime Minister.
Labour has gained correspondingly. It has consistently been above 40 per cent in the polls since Johnson stepped down. Labour’s lead over the Conservatives has always been at least 15 per cent, and it is currently around 20 per cent. By contrast, Tony Blair’s landslide victory over John Major in 1997 was driven by a Labour lead of “just” 13 per cent.
But the electoral geography is also very different from 1997. Labour have lost support in both Scotland and their traditional “red wall” heartlands, while the Conservatives have lost voters to the Liberal Democrats in the south of England.
So how can we work out what the changes in public opinion will mean for the likely election result?
One useful new method is the MRP technique for analysing opinion polls. Based on academic research, this automatically finds the correlation between voting intention and the demographic characteristics of respondents. It then applies those relationships to the demographics of each seat, as measured by the recent UK census, to estimate the election result for each individual seat. These MRP polls have been used successfully by Electoral Calculus and other pollsters to predict the results of the last two elections.
Recent MRP polls have consistently predicted a large Labour landslide, almost always with a majority of at least 100 seats, and often much more. Electoral Calculus’ current prediction is for a Labour majority of around 250 seats, though that figure will likely change as the year progresses. Is this certain to happen?
No model is perfect, and not every seat will be predicted exactly. But it is a good scientific guide to what is likely to happen. Of course, polls can be wrong, public opinion can change between now and the election date, and events could happen that affect the political environment. But the central case is for a large Labour victory. As Runyon said, the race is not always to the swift, but that’s the way to bet.
One extra complicating factor at the next election will be the new constituency boundaries. The four national Boundary Commissions have been busy working on the new seats since 2020 and their final proposals were approved in November last year. Most seats have seen some changes, and sixteen seats have been moved from low-population areas in Wales, Scotland, and the north of England to higher-population areas in the south of England.ย
Final thoughts
Our polls suggest that anti-Conservative tactical voting could be an important factor in the next election. Many supporters of Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green party will think tactically about how to cast their vote to maximise the chance of defeating the Conservative candidate. But such tactical voting will only work if voters have a correct (or at least consistent) view of which party is the anti-Conservative challenger.
The new boundaries mean that it’s not fully clear, in each seat, which party came second to the Conservatives in 2019. And the large change in public opinion since then means that the political pecking order of the seat may have changed anyway. In the run-up to the election, expect to see a proliferation of guidance from centre-left parties and websites offering advice to tactical voters.
The future is never certain, and opinion poll science points to a big Labour win. But it’s the voters who get to decide.
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