On 4th July 2024, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party achieved a landslide victory at the UK General Election, winning 411 out of 650 parliamentary seats in towns, cities, suburbs across England, Scotland and Wales.
Labour reversed its historic decline amongst working-class voters, as a result of a specific strategy to reconnect the party with voters that had formed a critical part of their founding electoral coalition. This matters not just for its symbolism, but because there is simply no route to a parliamentary majority in British politics without winning significant numbers of working-class voters. It also matters because it shows to center-left parties around the world that it is possible to win over lost working-class voters, a crucial part of the winning electoral coalition.
However a sizable portion of working-class voters in particular opted for new party Reform UK, and underneath Labour’s considerable achievement is a recognition that many voters feel sceptical that any party can really deliver for them. As Labour moves from campaigning to governing, they will need to be just as focussed on winning over working-class voters as they were in opposition.
Using data collected in the run up to the UK General Election, this new PPI report outlines the priorities of Britain’s working-class voters on the area that matters most to them: work and the economy. It builds on the foundational report on the global center-left, PPI’s ‘Roadmap to Hope’ published in October 2023. The reports are the UK companion to PPI’s Campaign for Working Americans, which aims to refocus the Democrats on regaining the allegiance of working Americans by championing their economic aspirations and moral outlook.
Our aim is to help catalyse a dynamic, modern center-left that can win the support of workingclass voters by providing better answers than the political right to the challenges they face. We are willing UK Labour to succeed in government, and the Democrats to succeed in their campaign to retain the Presidency. The opportunity facing the centre-left is to be the dynamic force that brings back hope to working class voters, so that they face the future with optimism about the prospects for themselves and the next generation.
In ‘Roadmap to Hope’, PPI research found that working-class voters felt the deal whereby if you worked hard you can get on in life had broken down. We argue that the centre-left cannot win and sustain power purely by being the beneficiaries of disenchantment with the political right, but by building a programme that addresses people’s security and prospects for the future.
PPI outlined a set of practical ideas to re-make the deal for working people with the following goals:
1. Relentless focus on raising wages for those on low to middle incomes
2. Stabilise supply and costs of essential goods and services
3. Open up housing investment to the next generation
4. Reform school education to become the driver of progress
5. Replace ‘one rule for them’ with ‘same rules apply’, including on immigration.
This report focusses on the experience and wants of working-class voters on work, costs and the economy, and the political and policy solutions to form the winning centre-left agenda.
