This is the fourth and final of PPI’s weekly bulletin charting the course of the UK General Election, from PPI’s Claire Ainsley.
Claire is based in the UK, directing PPI’s project on center-left renewal, and is former director of policy to Labour leader Keir Starmer. She is supporting the Labour campaign, as a media commentator, as well as on the ground ahead of polling day next week on Thursday 4th July.
The U.K. is entering the final days of its general election campaign, and whilst the overall polls aren’t budging much with a sustained lead for Labour, there are some undercurrents that means the result is not a foregone conclusion.
A large minority of voters are undecided, even at this late stage. In the main, these are people who voted Conservative in 2019, don’t really want to vote for them again, but are holding back from changing their vote to Labour.
A good proportion of them are switching to new entrants Reform U.K., partly driven by their dissatisfaction with the Conservatives’ failure to manage immigration, and who want change not the status quo. Reform U.K. are set to do much better than the national political conversation is accounting for, taking votes mainly at the Conservatives’ expense but also from Labour. It may not translate into many MPs, but it doesn’t need to play havoc with British politics. Just look at Brexit.
Then there are the undecided voters who would normally vote Conservative, might have voted Labour under Tony Blair, but are yet to come over to Labour. Their concerns are primarily on tax and spend, which Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves have been reassuring voters they will not put personal taxes up nor unleash public spending without the proceeds of improved growth to pay for it. The Tory campaign is now focussed on these two groups, and makes the overall result open to a broader range of election possibilities than the media coverage would suggest. Sunak threw punch after punch Starmer’s way in our final leaders’ television debate, which are not as widely watched as in the US, but signalled that’s where the Conservative strategy is at.
All this underscores the need to center-left parties to meet the voters where they are, and win the argument against the political right about destination. British voters want a better economy and better public services. They are sceptical any political party can really deliver that. Despite that, Labour’s lead is holding ahead of election day. If they do succeed, they will need to waste no time in delivering the change the country has voted for.
