Ian, an IT professional in his 40s from south-west Scotland, has no idea how he will vote in the UK general election in less than two weeks’ time.
“Ultimately, there has been nothing from any of the mainstream parties to make me think that they have done anything to deserve my vote, so I’m undecided,” he said. “Politics in Britain are a complete shambles, no matter which of the home nations you live in.”
Ian was one of many still undecided voters who shared with the Guardian why they could not make up their minds. Large numbers of them are fuelling the concerns of Labour candidates in many areas, despite polls predicting a landslide victory.
Most people who got in touch said they felt none of the parties’ proposals would effect change and national renewal. It defied belief, Ian said, that people were still voting for the Conservatives, yet he felt the Labour leadership had “no personality” and that their campaign had “not inspired confidence”.
“My concern? That the country is going to go to hell in a handbasket, no matter which party wins,” he said; a sentiment echoed by many undecided voters sharing their views.
Widespread indecision over divisive issues
Mere days away from the election, responses to a Guardian online callout as well as follow up interviews underscored primarily how deeply voters are divided on issues such as taxation, Brexit, home building, net zero emissions, private schools, women’s and trans rights, and support for the most disadvantaged.
While various younger respondents, for instance, felt “uninspired” because no party had convincingly promised to tackle the climate crisis, the Brexit fallout and the increasingly unaffordable cost of living, a number of retired voters criticised “timid” and “unambitious” plans from Labour to increase public spending via higher income taxation which, various felt, should be shouldered by younger workers to improve public services including the NHS.
Such divisions in communities are likely to decide electoral contests in a string of marginal seats, with the political consultancy Electoral Calculus having identified a third of all seats – 220 or 33.8% – as marginal this general election: where the margin of victory is expected to be 10% or less.
Undecided in knife-edge seats
Diane Blakeley, 70, is retired and lives in the marginal seat of Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, in Suffolk, which Labour is predicted to narrowly gain from the Conservatives. She remains undecided.
“Who to vote for? There is good and bad in all the manifestos, but since many of the promises made in previous ones have never been kept, I cannot believe in any of them,” Blakeley said. Having voted for the Liberal Democrats in 2019, she ruled out voting for the Conservatives but felt Labour “aren’t convincing” either.
Malcolm, a retired chemist living in the historically safe Tory but now marginal constituency of Hexham, Northumberland, said Labour’s lack of transparency on taxation had made it extremely difficult for him to decide, having voted for the party in 2019.
“The Labour manifesto [in many places] is suggestive without committing, so you can project your own hopes and fears on to it. My overriding concern is climate change – but whoever is elected will also face crumbling public services that will require considerable sums of money to fix.
“Labour isn’t being candid about how it will raise money to repair public services. This leaves people to guess how the party will act in government.”
Torran, 33, a remote tech worker from Rochdale, where George Galloway, the controversial leader of the Workers party of Britain, is battling to defend his byelection win earlier this year against Labour, said he was “torn between Green and Labour”.
“The Green manifesto reads like an unaffordable wishlist but I do believe they have the best intentions of all the parties,” he said. “The Labour manifesto just made me sad – very little to inspire hope. I cannot believe they are not ending the two-child benefit cap. To paraphrase Hamilton: it’s very ‘promise less, smile more’.”
Voters in marginal “toss-up” seats, such as Bromley and Biggin Hill, Wokingham, Mid Bedfordshire, Salisbury, West Suffolk, Waveney Valley, North Devon, Mid Dunbartonshire, North East Derbyshire, and Dumfries and Galloway, among various others, told the Guardian they were undecided but that they would definitely vote.
Complicated voters defying electoral stereotypes
Many responses underlined how difficult it had become for parties to appeal to diverse and complicated groups of voters simultaneously, with many of them defying traditional characteristics of voter groups that pollsters and parties may have instinctively assigned them to: London bankers fearing the climate crisis the most; university students worrying about the future of the state pension; comfortably off remain voters with growing concerns about migration.
Alan, 41, an accountant from the constituency of Chingford and Woodford Green, a marginal seat that could switch from Conservative to Labour, said fiscal drag was the most important issue for him this election.
Despite a household income of about £150,000 before tax, Alan and his wife had to remortgage their home to afford the monthly £3,000 nursery bill for their two children, alongside higher mortgage costs due to soaring interest rates. Alan said people like himself could not afford current levels of taxation.
“The middle classes are being squeezed too far, tax is crippling families. It’s driving people out of work, limiting people’s ambition and is a massive barrier to economic growth,” he said.
But he added: “I’d choose higher taxes if this meant heavy investment in climate crisis solutions, but I know that increased taxes won’t be going towards that. I can’t imagine voting Conservative and it’s unforgivable that Labour has rowed back on its £28bn environmental pledge.”
Richard, a 45-year-old agency driver from Halifax, voted Conservative in 2019 and is undecided because he is concerned about immigration but opposes increases in defence spending.
“I’m worried that we will end up with more money spent on defence and wars instead of [it] being spent improving the UK,” Richard said. “I like a lot of what the Workers party and Greens are saying, and also Reform, [but] the parties that are anti-war and anti-nuclear are soft on immigration.”
Cat, 42, a single mother from Hertfordshire who is struggling to find a job in copywriting, said she would like to vote Labour but worried the party would not sufficiently support women’s rights alongside trans rights.
“It’s great that Labour wants trans people to live with freedom, dignity and respect. But that shouldn’t be at the risk or cost of other groups. A policy protecting biological female sports would be fantastic.
“There’s also the issue of unregulated immigration impacting on housing and state services. Why not count how much capacity there is each year, and build more, before inviting people in?”
A lack of trust
Scores of people blamed rock-bottom levels of trust in politicians for their indecision.
Concerns over Starmer’s repeated breaking of pledges loomed large in many interviews with respondents who were desperate to see the back of the Conservatives, among them 63-year-old mechanical engineer Mark Goodfellow, from the marginal Conservative seat of North Somerset, which is predicted to be narrowly gained by Labour.
“I have never felt more disenfranchised in my life,” he said. “I’m utterly disillusioned with the Tories after 14 years of chaos and no achievements. But I remain uncertain as to whether I should vote tactically so the Tories can’t win, even though I’m no great fan of Labour and find it difficult to understand what Labour actually will do if elected.”
Goodfellow was among various older voters who said they feared Labour could affect their retirement negatively, for instance by raising council tax.
“At the moment I’m looking at a retirement income of around £20,000 a year, including the state pension. I’m fearful that Labour will move the goalposts and wreck my plans,” he said.
“Loads of people” in his social circle had “no clue who to vote for” because of similar concerns.
Michael, 28, an undecided public sector worker from the marginal seat of Newton Abbott, in Devon, which could switch from Tory to Lib Dem, said he would have liked to vote Labour but lost trust in the party when the Tory MP Natalie Elphicke was welcomed into its ranks.
Locally, Michael felt, “it wouldn’t make a lick of difference” if the Conservative MP was replaced by a Lib Dem one. “I don’t trust any of them,” he said.
Local issues v national issues
Mike, a teacher from Cornwall, was one of many who said they were struggling to decide whether they should vote with personal or local issues in mind, or with the best interests of the nation as a whole.
“Nationally, I feel like Labour is the choice for me, however, on a local level I find myself inclined to vote for my Conservative MP, who has dealt well with local issues and is decent on a human level,” he said.
Scottish respondents were particularly uncertain whether to prioritise local or national concerns, with many keen to boot the Conservatives from power, but also worried that a Labour landslide would result in Scottish issues being ignored by Westminster, and therefore pondering a vote for the Scottish National party.
One such voter, 46-year-old IT worker and top-rate taxpayer Richard Warburton, from Bathgate and Linlithgow, a seat predicted to narrowly switch from SNP to Labour, said although he thought “the Labour manifesto was great, comprehensive and slick”, he felt “voting for Labour might not be the best result for Scotland”.
“The biggest issue is that, if we get a Labour MP up here, they’ll be under a Labour whip, and that the SNP are a better voice for Scotland,” he said. “I really don’t know what to do.”
Head v heart
Scores of younger and older people – providing insights into an increasingly fractured electorate – said they liked the Greens’ and Lib Dems’ manifestos best, though many acknowledged that these parties were able to make bigger promises because they would almost certainly not form the next government.
Various people said they would vote Green in a proportional representation voting system but felt that doing so under first-past-the-post rules would be “pointless”.
A number of people said they faced a “head v heart” decision, among them retired Tilly*, 65, from Ashfield, where the ex-Tory MP Lee Anderson is trying to win for Reform.
Tilly spent her working life as a hosiery factory machinist on piecework rates and in “low-level admin jobs”. Usually a Labour voter, she said she was now “nervous about Labour’s desires to build more housing estates”, fearing this could increase local commuter traffic.
“I want the Tories atomised,” she said. “My heart wants to vote Green but my head won’t let me, [because] I fear the Reform mob getting any sort of power. I just want my vote to count.”
*Name has been changed
