Voters are switching from the Tories to Labour in the most pro-leave parts of the country in such numbers that Keir Starmer may need a far lower overall swing from the Conservatives to win a parliamentary majority than was previously believed, election analysts have claimed.
In their analysis of this month’s local elections, professors Robert Ford of Manchester University and John Curtice of Strathclyde University both noted that the bigger the 2016 vote was for leave in an area, the higher the swing was to Labour.
Party strategists have also been encouraged by the way it has been winning back voters in the most pro-leave parts of the country.
Labour sources said results of the recent elections showed that in the 10% of new parliamentary constituencies with the highest leave votes, the council election swing from Tory to Labour from 2021 to 2024 had been 11.3%. In the rest of the country the swing had been 6.5%. They cited Thurrock, where Labour took control of the council on 2 May, which had the fourth highest leave share in the country in 2016 (72.3%), and other one-time leave strongholds such as Cannock Chase, Staffordshire (68.9%), where it also took charge of the council, as examples.
Research compiled by academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, published in January, found Labour would need a 12.7 point swing from the Conservatives to win an overall majority in the House of Commons under new parliamentary boundaries. That would be larger than the 10.2 point swing former prime minister Tony Blair achieved when he led Labour to power in 1997.
Ford said that if Labour’s improving prospects in Scotland were also taken into account, it could be that the party would now need a far lower swing, as Labour’s vote was becoming more efficient and spread more evenly.
Speaking to the Observer, Ford said: “Labour’s vote in 2019 [at the general election] was very inefficient, with votes piled up in safe Labour seats in remain areas while there was a big swing against them in the leave areas, where they lost seats. Most Westminster constituencies lean to leave because the remain vote is concentrated, while the leave vote is more spread out. Hence the calculation that, on a uniform swing, Labour would need a huge swing to get a majority of one.
“But there is a way out. If Labour could change the distribution of its support, winning a bigger swing in leave areas than remain areas, and thus unwind (at least partially) the Brexit divide which opened up in 2019 – then they could win a majority even with a smaller overall swing.
“And that is exactly what Labour have been doing since 2021. It is evident in polling. It is evident in the 2023 local election results. And it is evident once again in [this month’s] local election results.”
Curtice said the Brexit factor meant that the situation was complex and many factors were at play. “Although Labour has gained ground among those who voted leave in 2016, the wellspring of pro-EU support is constantly being refuelled by other sources.
“So [many of] the younger people who couldn’t vote in 2019 who are voting Labour now are pro-EU. People who voted Labour in 2019 have swung against Brexit in exactly the same way as the general public. It isn’t just a Labour/Tory thing.
“The Labour party have picked up about one in three of those who voted Liberal Democrat in 2019, virtually all of them pro-remain, and those who defected from Tory to Labour are disproportionately people who have changed their minds on Brexit.”
