Six months after Labour’s biggest landslide in a generation, the new government is already in the mire. The poll lead on which Starmer’s majority was built has already all but vanished, leaving Labour in a three-way dogfight with the Conservatives and Nigel Farage’s resurgent Reform UK, while, further down, both the Greens and Liberal Democrats have also made gains.
Voters have historically given new governments the benefit of the doubt, with most holding their ground or gaining support in their first six months. Blair’s first two new Labour governments enjoyed polling honeymoons. Starmer has had no such luck. Labour’s seven-point decline since the election has been exceeded only once in the past four decades – by the Conservatives’ eight-point fall in the wake of “Black Wednesday” in 1992. Starmer’s early approval ratings are also worse than any PM at this stage except Major after the ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism) crisis. Major never recovered the ground lost early, and went on to a landslide defeat.
But history is only a loose guide, and Labour’s current troubles in part reflect two features of the electoral landscape with no precedent – no government with a large majority has ever started with a lower share of the electorate, nor has any government faced a weaker or more divided opposition.
The narrow base on which Labour built becomes clear if we combine two figures – vote share and turnout – to estimate what share of all eligible voters have backed a government. Last July, Labour won a landslide on the back of the lowest ever winning vote share, in an election with the second lowest ever turnout. As a result, only two in every 10 eligible voters cast a ballot for Starmer’s Labour – the lowest figure by far for a government starting with a substantial majority. Big election victories usually mean a substantial cohort of voters is invested in the new government’s success. Not this time.
A narrow base brings other problems. Labour had to spread itself thin to win so many seats with so few votes: more than half of Starmer’s MPs have majorities of 20% or lower. Never before have so many MPs had to worry so early about their future prospects. Insecurity can breed rebellion – loyalty has less value for politicians who fear defeat, even less for those who expect it. The longer Labour languishes in the polls, the worse this problem will become.
The new government can at least take some comfort from the fate of its vanquished opponents. Polls in the past have been a seesaw – if the government was down then the opposition was up. Not this time. The Conservatives have made only a tepid recovery from their worst ever defeat, gaining less than a point in the polls. Almost half of those expressing a preference now reject both traditional parties of government, favouring someone new.
The unprecedented fragmentation of political competition in last summer’s election has only accelerated since. The advance of Farage has been grabbing the headlines, with Reform UK now polling well ahead of its record showing last July. But a fragmented vote means a more complex electoral map. Fewer than half of constituency contests feature Labour and the Conservatives in the top two – another record. For many Labour MPs, the local challenge comes from the Greens, independents or the SNP, while for the Conservatives it is the Liberal Democrats who provide the main challenge in many seats.
Fragmentation holds some advantages for Labour. Reform’s advance is, for now at least, beneficial for the government, as Farage’s party currently still wins more Tory-curious than Labour-leaning votes, and drags Kemi Badenoch’s opposition away from the centre ground. The rise of new competitors on the left is a liability for individual Labour MPs, but may open opportunities for Labour in a more closely divided Commons. Unless Reform makes a truly dramatic breakthrough, Labour is likely to have more natural allies than the Conservatives in a hung parliament.
It is still early and Labour has both time and the unrivalled power of a huge majority to turn things round. Perhaps Starmer can take inspiration from the only recent prime minister to rebound quickly from a sharp early slump: Margaret Thatcher. She staked her 1979 majority on a programme of radical reform, then held firm through a severe recession to reap the rewards of recovery. Thatcher inherited a struggling economy and a restive electorate. But she didn’t see these as reasons for caution. Instead, she bet big, putting all her chips on change. Caution hasn’t worked for Labour. Maybe it is time to start rolling the dice.
Robert Ford is professor of political science at Manchester University
