Progressive voters could push Reform UK into fourth place and put Labour within touching distance of a majority if tactical voting is widespread at the next election, a major poll has found. Andy Burnham is beginning to attract a significant number of left-leaning voters back to Labour, motivated by a desire to stop Nigel Farage, the results suggest. The poll of more than 8,000 voters, shared with the Guardian, suggests a widespread openness to voting tactically.
It also shows the prime minister’s most successful electoral strategy would be to unite the centre and left bloc of voters, while the right remains split. It would be a marked contrast to the tactics of Keir Starmer’s Labour before the 2024 general election, when the party tried to attract more conservative older voters. Such a tactic would be likely to unsettle some in Labour, given the same strategy was deployed for Ed Miliband’s failed bid in 2015, albeit before Reform’s arrival as a major electoral force.
The poll on the eve of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool shows a significant shift of left-leaning voters towards Burnham’s Labour and will encourage those in the party who are thinking of gambling on an early election while Reform’s ratings are ebbing and while leftwing parties such as the Greens appear to be losing momentum. Twice as many voters have returned to Labour from the left as from the right since April. The previously unreleased research, including a seat-by-seat MRP model, was conducted by Survation and the progressive activist site 38 Degrees in Burnham’s first month as prime minister.
It suggests Labour would be the largest party in parliament if an election took place today, on 272 seats, a four-point lead. This would mean achieving 42% of parliamentary seats with 28% of the vote. Reform would become the official opposition on 153.
This represents 24% of seats – the same as its vote share. The Conservatives would fall to third place with 85. Two hundred seats are tight marginals decided by under five points, meaning a two- to three-point swing could move about 100 seats that are likely to decide a future election.
But in a sign of the volatility of the polls, a far higher percentage of voters are open to tactical voting in those seats when they cite their preferred party. If voters are prepared to switch to one of the two frontrunners in their seats, rather than their preferred party, then Reform UK’s seat count would fall dramatically, favouring Labour and the Conservatives. About 18% of voters who live in a seat where tactical voting would make a substantial difference say they are willing to do so but are not yet doing so.
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