13 Jan 2025

MHP Polarisation Tracker: Labour is losing low trust voters, Reform is building an anti-establishment coalition

The latest wave of the MHP Polarisation Tracker, produced with Cambridge University’s Political Psychology Unit, reveals that many “Super Distruster” voters have deserted Labour over the last year and are turning to Reform.

Nick Barron
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In our latest report, we examine attitudes towards Labour in government and the rise of Reform. We also explore attitudes towards immigration and Net Zero, whether people believe we live in a ‘two-tier’ society, and whether there really is a growing gender divide in British politics. Five key takeaways from this report include:
  1. Labour has lost significant support from low trust voters, with Reform the main beneficiaries
  2. Immigration has become the biggest dividing line in British politics
  3. Belief in a two-tier society is widespread, with class rather than ethnicity seen as the big divide
  4. Public support for the UK’s Net Zero ambitions remains strong but shows evidence of both overall decline and growing left-right polarisation
  5. Younger men feel unfairly demonised by society and younger women are the most likely group to disagree with the political views of the opposite sex  

The latest wave of the MHP Polarisation Tracker, produced with Cambridge University’s Political Psychology Unit, reveals that many “Super Distruster” voters have deserted Labour over the last year and are turning to Reform.

“Super Distrusters” are a cluster of voters identified in Wave 6, which accounts for nearly one third of British adults (29%).

This audience believes that institutions such as government, big business, the police and the media do not serve the public interest, but instead prop up a corrupt establishment. For example:

  • 97% believe that the media push the establishment’s political agenda
  • 60% believe the courts and civil service have used underhand tricks to obstruct the will of the people
  • 100% agree with the statement that “people in positions of power work together to obstruct the will of the people if it goes against their political agenda.”

Over the last year, we have been tracking this cluster’s voting preferences, and have found a steady decline in their enthusiasm for Labour and a corresponding rise in support for Reform.

Support for Labour among these low trust adults has fallen from 30% in July 2023 to 25% in March 2024 to 20% in October 2024.

We found a strong correlation between people’s faith in the system and their support for Labour’s performance since taking power, with high trust voters the least likely to say that Labour have been a disappointment, or that Starmer “lied” to achieve power. By contrast, the majority of Super Distrusters believe that Starmer is cruel and authoritarian.

Meanwhile, Reform is building a coalition of support that, like our trust clusters, defies traditional left-right analysis and is united instead by concern about the system as a whole.

As Nigel Farage recently told JOE Politics in an interview, Reform’s significant support overlaps with the old Corbyn wing of the Labour party:

“[They are] anti-establishment, obviously. A sense that the giant corporations now dominate the world that we live in, that politics is very much in the pocket of the big corporates.”

Our data shows that Reform voters believe the UK political system is fundamentally broken. A total of 93% of Reform supporters disagree that the UK’s political system is equipped to handle the nation’s challenges. This is closer to Green party supporters (78%) and non-aligned voters (74%) than it is to supporters of the three traditional main parties (Labour: 55%, Conservatives: 51%, Lib Dems: 60%).

When we asked people if “it is getting to the point where we will need mass coordinated strikes to paralyse the government and force through the political change we need,” 53% of Reform supporters agreed, compared with 43% of Greens and 26% of Labour supporters.

This anti-establishment sentiment seems to be translating into strong opposition to many key policies, including UK immigration policy and the country’s Net Zero targets. In both areas, Reform is again the outlier, with much stronger levels of hostility.

  • 53% of Reform supporters say reducing immigration is their top political priority, compared with 19% of Conservatives and 2% of Labour supporters
  • 54% of Reform supporters disagree that “we should try to reach Net Zero by 2050, even if it means I have to make changes to my way of life”, compared to 40% of Conservatives and 14% of Labour supporters

Perhaps most significantly, Reform voters have a fundamentally different relationship to the British state than supporters of other parties, and are highly suspicious of authority, driven by a core belief that Britain is an unfair country:

  • 87% of Reform supporters agree that “Britain is a two-tier society, where some groups get special treatment from institutions like the government, the media, the police, and the NHS”, compared with 65% of Conservatives and 73% of Labour supporters
  • 69% of Reform supporters sympathise with the motives of the Southport rioters, compared with 29% of Conservatives and 19% of Labour supporters
  • 41% of Reform supporters believe the British security services “stirred up” the Southport riots, compared with 17% of Conservatives and 13% of Labour supporters

Our data suggests that Reform may be better placed than the Conservatives to capitalise on a mood of public discontent, with voters still more likely to blame them than Labour for the state of the nation, and Reform’s platform closer to the worldview of lower trust audiences, undecideds and disaffected Labour supporters.

Our digitally networked society has produced a highly unstable political environment, in which voters are less attached to traditional party labels and are increasingly likely to form their political identity in relation to policies like Net Zero, issues like immigration and concepts like two-tier Britain. Reform is perhaps better understood as a coalition of these identities than as a traditional party. Whether this coalition can survive publishing a manifesto or whether Nigel Farage can win the support of a broader audience are different matters.

Labour and the Conservatives face a question just as existential: What role do they play in this new world?

 

Read the full report here.

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