The Labour Party begins the new year in its worst position ever in the polls, 18.5 percent, since monthly averages were first calculated in 1983, when Michael Foot was the Labour leader. There is little consolation in the Electoral Calculus prediction that if an election were held today Labour would come second in seats. It could thereby become the official opposition to a minority Reform UK government.
Labour's continuing decline in support puts it in third place in the national competition for votes, with the Conservatives in second place. The Tory lead of seven-tenths of one percent is not statistically significant, but it is politically significant. It shows that the Tory Party is recovering from its low point of 17pc in September. This reduces the party pressure on Kemi Badenoch's leadership and gives the media free rein to concentrate on when disaffected Labour MPs will trigger a challenge to Keir Starmer's position as prime minister.
The descent of Keir Starmer's government to third place in the polls is the result of its own shortcomings. It has not found a way to make the economy grow, essential if it is to spend more on policies popular with would-be Labour voters and avoid more cuts in spending and tax increases. Its long catalogue of unforced errors and U-turns started before it entered Downing Street and has continued with a Christmas present to its 40 MPs in rural seats, a reversal of an iinheritance tax increase on family farms.
While both the Conservatives and Labour have lost support in the polls, Labour has lost much more in both absolute and relative terms. Its electoral support has almost halved, falling 16.2 percentage points since its general election victory eighteen months ago. By contrast, the Conservatives are only one-fifth down from their losing total at the last election.
Labour's poor performance in government has redistributed rather than reduced public support for parties on the left. At the last general election Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens collectively won 54 percent of British votes. Labour won more than three-fifths of that total and five-sixths of the left's MPs.
Green support has almost doubled and Liberal Democrat support has held steady thanks to the defection of Labour voters since the last election. By contrast, the Starmer government has lost almost half its support and Labour now contributes only two-fifths of the left vote. If an allowance is made for the potential vote of Your Party, Labour's claim to represent the left falls further.
Supporters of Keir Starmer can seek refuge in the seat prediction suggesting that Labour is still second in seats in the House of Commons. However, Labour MPs don't need a computer to realise that this means more than 300 of them would lose their seats if a general election were held tomorrow.
A general election won't be held until 2029 but a ballot for the leadership of the Labour Party can be held whenever eighty Labour MPs call for it. MPs are already talking about holding a leadership election in summer 2026 in the aftermath of an expected big set of Labour defeats in English local elections and devolved elections in Scotland and Wales. Since those voting for a Labour leader are significantly to the left of the electorate as a whole, Starmer could come third rather than first in that poll too.
Prof Richard Rose's forthcoming book is "The Disruption of the British Party System".