{"id":612,"date":"2024-03-04T18:48:11","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/?p=612"},"modified":"2024-03-04T18:48:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:48:11","slug":"kingmakers-voter-disenfranchisement-with-the-conservatives-and-labour-and-the-role-of-reform-uk-in-ge-24-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/2024\/03\/04\/kingmakers-voter-disenfranchisement-with-the-conservatives-and-labour-and-the-role-of-reform-uk-in-ge-24-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingmakers? \u2013 voter disenfranchisement with the Conservatives and Labour, and the role of Reform UK in GE 24\/25"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With a General Election on the horizon all parties within the United Kingdom are beginning to ramp up their Election campaigns, with the scene of the election starting to become clearer day by day, this election promises to be unlike any other. The rapid infighting within the conservative party\u2019s right wing and centre has left the door open for other parties such as Reform UK to hoover up disillusioned voters and MPs. The decline of the Conservative Party since Boris Johnson has been both swift and drastic, this paired with voter indifference to Labour, means Reform UK have the greatest opportunity since the DUP in 2017-19 to damage the two-party system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Exemplifying two-party disillusionment: Favourability Ratings of Labour and Conservative Party + respective Leaders<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

YouGov carried out favourability Polls between the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> January 2024, with the Conservative Party receiving the following Ratings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This overall Net-Rating of -54 is the lowest the Conservative Party had polled since the Favourability Tracker began in 2020, even less than during Liz Truss\u2019 infamous tenure as Prime Minister which lasted less than two months. For the Governmental Party to hold a negative rating of -54 illustrates how dissatisfied voters are with over 14 years of Conservative Government and that they are not only ready for change but demanding it. The question is, do the public believe the Labour Party is where this change comes from?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Labour Party while polling significantly better than the Conservatives also had a net negative rating, -15, This shows that while the general population holds a deep resentment for the Conservatives and overall holds a more favourable view of Labour, the overarching view of the Labour party is negative. The general population clearly don\u2019t view Labour as an effective channel of change, rather, the lesser of two evils when compared to the scandal-stricken Conservatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This view extends to party leaders, with Rishi Sunak holding a -51 rating, a rating which is as low as Boris Johnsons\u2019 in the midst of the PartyGate scandal and lower than any rating Sunak has previously received. Keir Starmer also holds a negative rating, with a rating of -22, he has a rating less than that of his own party a fact which should worry Labour as he is seemingly the next Prime Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What Does Recent Polling Tell us?<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This YouGov poll conducted between the 28th<\/sup> and 29th<\/sup> of February 2024 has a few key takeaways, Labour remains well ahead of the Conservatives with 46% while the Conservatives only hold 20%, a difference of 26%. Labour is not the only party to gain from conservative losses however, with Reform UK polling at 14%, ahead of both the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, and only 6% behind the Conservatives. The Reform Party has collected \u2018\u201921% of those who voted Conservative in 2019.\u2019\u2019 (YouGov Polling, 2024) While Labour has only taken 12%, with 20% still unsure as to how they will vote in the next General Election. This presents Reform UK with an unprecedented opportunity to gain voters from a fractured Conservative base and present themselves as a viable alternative to undecided voters. If Reform UK can gain from this undecided vote it could lead to dire consequences for the Conservatives who may see MPs and councillors begin to defect to Reform as a genuine Right-Wing party. We can already see this occurring with Conservative councillor Maria Bowtell leaving to join Reform UK as \u2018\u2019the party, nationally, no longer reflects her values.\u2019\u2019 (Hemmingham, 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent By-Elections \u2013 a Glimpse into the future?<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent By-Elections in Kingswood and Wellingborough can serve as a view into how a general election will play-out, with Labour beating conservatives in both Kingswood and Wellingborough to win the seats. The real winners of these two by-elections however, was Reform who recorded two of their best results ever with +10.4% in Kingswood and +13% in Wellingborough, this sway from Conservative to Reform no doubt aided in a Labour victory as for example in Kingswood the conservatives lost -21.3% of their 2019 vote while Labour only gained +11.5%, clearly showing that gains made by reform had a large part to play in Labour gaining the seat. These elections show us that despite Reform being likely to not win any seats in the General Election, they will play a huge role in splitting the Conservative vote and enthroning a Labour which voters are largely Indifferent to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Gecsoyler, S., 2024. Labour overturns 18,000 Tory majority to win Wellingborough byelection. <\/em>[Online]
Available at: https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2024\/feb\/16\/labour-wins-wellingborough-byelection-gen-kitchen
[Accessed 4 March 2024].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hemmingham, N., 2024. Councillor defects from Conservatives to Reform UK. <\/em>[Online]
Available at: https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ck702zlrzwlo
[Accessed 4 March 2024].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simson, P. & Ketibuah-Foley, J., 2024. Kingswood by-election: Labour’s Damien Egan overturns large Tory majority. <\/em>[Online]
Available at: https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-bristol-68308476
[Accessed 4 March 2024].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YouGov Fieldwork, 2024. YouGov Political Favourability Tracker (December 2019 Election Onward). <\/em>[Online]
Available at: https:\/\/d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net\/documents\/Main_FavourabilityTracker_W_200901.xlsx.pdf
[Accessed 4 March 2024].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YouGov Polling , 2024. Voting Intention: Con 20%, Lab 46% (28-29 Feb 2024). <\/em>[Online]
Available at: https:\/\/yougov.co.uk\/politics\/articles\/48794-voting-intention-con-20-lab-46-28-29-feb-2024
[Accessed 3 March 2024].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a General Election on the horizon all parties within the United Kingdom are beginning to ramp up their Election<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1527,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}