As reported on by Stats for Lefties, YouGov polling shows that 50% of Labour voters have “walked away” since the 2024 election:
50% of Labour voters (17pts) have walked away. Where did they go?
Lab ->
Grn: 6.2pts [ 36% ]
Lib: 4.2pts [ 24% ]
Ref: 3.5pts [ 20% ]
Con: 1.4pts [ 8% ]
70%+ of defecting Labour voters have moved *left*.
Via @YouGov, 14 Dec-9 Jan pic.twitter.com/2uM0HEVJjl
— Stats for Lefties
(@LeftieStats) January 26, 2026
Leftwards swing?
Stats for Lefties makes the argument that 70% of the leavers have moved left, noting:
Contrary to popular belief, Labour is not struggling in the polls because they’re losing votes to Reform. Even if they recovered all the votes lost to Reform they’d still be on just 21%, down double digits since GE2024.
Instead, the bulk of votes lost have been to the LEFT.
— Stats for Lefties
Novara’s Helena had a niggle with this, saying:
I don’t think you can really call defectors [to] a party that opposes taxing millionaire farmers and posh private school parents as having moved left. Just a different brand of centrism
— NJ (@NoJusticeMTG) January 26, 2026
Specifically, she’s pointing out that some of the voters moving ‘left’ are actually opting for the Liberal Democrats. It’s a fair point that the Lib Dems aren’t left of Labour on most issues, but without more data it’s hard to say precisely what made these voters abandon Labour (or what they think the Lib Dems are offering instead).
It could be that many of these voters switched because they see the Lib Dems as being to the left of Labour on immigration, but as noted, we can’t rule out that some of them are actually concerned Labour is too progressive on private schools or other issues.
Niggles aside, we can certainly say that Labour’s biggest threat isn’t what Reform and the Tories are offering. This makes one thing clear; that Labour bending over backwards to impress Reform supporters is probably just turning more voters away:
Most people get worse off while a tiny few get even richer.
Labour used to have policies to change that. Now they don’t.
That’s why the party is so unpopular and politics is so volatile.
Aping Reform won’t win votes, is not pragmatic, nor progressive. It’s just stupid. pic.twitter.com/6bP1saO1Wq
— James Schneider (@schneiderhome) June 3, 2025
As Ed Sykes wrote for the Canary on 26 January:
Starmer’s Tory-lite politics sums up liberal capitalism perfectly. Its soulless management of an unjust system, while uttering a few nice words here and there, just enables fascism to grow. And in the end, when it faces a choice between fascism and socialism, it prefers fascism.
In short, Labour and Reform are just two sides of the same coin. If you play the establishment’s games, you’ll get a different face, but it’s the same system of injustice and inequality.
Oh, and none of this is new by the way – the following is from February last year:
Top reasons 2024 Labour voters are abandoning the party:
- Cuts to winter fuel payment
- Not reduced cost of living
- Not improved public services
- Broken too many promises
- Not stood up to the rich and powerful
(YouGov polling) pic.twitter.com/ZBfJXqLNQ5
— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) February 5, 2025
Despite this being obvious to everyone, Labour has continued to swing right on immigration while ignoring the issues their own voters care most about.
Throwing the towel in
At this point, it looks almost like Starmer wants to destroy the Labour Party. That’s a wild conspiracy theory, of course, and yet sadly it makes more sense than him just being very, very bad at politics.
Featured image via StockVault
By Willem Moore
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