Sir Keir Starmer's U-turn on changing welfare benefits is likely to give him victory in a vote on disability payments in the Commons, but a lot more needs to be done to save the MPs' seats at the next election and keep himself in Downing Street.
Starmer can seek comfort in the fact that the voting intentions expressed today are in response to a hypothetical question about an election being held now rather than in 2029. However, it would be childish for Starmer and his advisors to rely on security blankets to shield them from where the electorate now stands. The average vote for Labour in June's polls is 23 percent, a fall of more than 10pc from its vote at last year's general election.
At the 2024 general election, the Labour Party maximized the disproportionality produced by the first-past-the-post electoral system. It won 63 percent of seats in the House of Commons with one-third of the popular vote. From this peak, there is only one direction in which its majority can go: down.
Labour's share of monthly poll support has been below 30 percent since October last year, and below 25 percent since February this year. Its share of predicted seats has been falling too. The MRP analysis of Electoral Calculus first put it short of an absolute parliamentary majority in November, 2024. The rise of support for Reform UK gave it more MPs than Labour for the first time in April this year and Reform gained a notional absolute majority in May, a prediction supported by local election results.
This June's MRP prediction shows that the first-past-the-post electoral system is now working to Reform's advantage. With 30 percent of poll support, it would likely win half of all MPs. While this is not quite as big a boost as Labour got a year ago, it is big enough to give Reform a lead of 180 seats over Labour. On current showing, Labour is likely to have MPs roughly in proportion to its share of the popular vote.
The potential loss of more than 260 seats it won a year ago takes away from Labour whips their strongest weapon against MPs rebelling against government policy: the threat of being suspended from the party's roster of parliamentary candidates and losing their seat at the next election. MRP points to a majority of Labour MPs facing the likely loss of their seat whether they are loyalists or rebels. They include twelve Cabinet ministers such as Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper.
The prime minister himself had his constituency vote drop by 17 percent at the last general election when challenged by a left-wing and pro-Gaza independent. As of today it looks set to drop another 14 percent, leaving him vulnerable to losing his seat in Holborn and St Pancras to tactical voting for a candidate uniting Starmer's Labour and non-Labour critics.
There are more than 200 weeks before the next general election and, as Harold Wilson was fond of remarking, "A week in politics is a long time". This gives Downing Street lots of time to replace its policy U-turns with a policy ladder that can help it climb back to first place in the polls and in predicted seats in the House of Commons.
For the time being, momentum is with the hundreds of Labour MPs who face the choice between being Starmer loyalists voting for cuts in social spending or remaining loyal to the traditional Labour cause of spending more on welfare. Whichever choice MPs make, current evidence indicates that they will lose their seats at the next general election. At best, Keir Starmer has to check whether his chance of remaining as head of a minority government is closer to one in six or one in five in the latest MRP.
Prof Richard Rose, University of Strathclyde is writing a book on The Disruption of the British Party System, to be published next spring.