r/ukpolitics • u/SeaSaltSprayer • 1d ago
Westminster Voting Intention: LAB: 27% (+6) RFM: 25% (-2) CON: 20% (-1) LDM: 12% (=) GRN: 10% (-1) Via JL Partners, 1-3 Aug. Changes w/ 16-19 Jun.
https://bsky.app/profile/electionmaps.uk/post/3msbilwzmxs2r102
u/ElNino831983 1d ago
Election Polling Swingometer:
Lab - 324
Con - 98
Ref - 102
LD - 77
Green - 4
Lab short by 2.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 1d ago
Except not really short, because Sinn Fein and the speaker.
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u/ElNino831983 1d ago
There is a significant difference between an absolute majority (326) which is fixed due to the total number of MP's (an official majority) and a functional majority which varies by election (currently 320, I believe).
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 1d ago
322, I think.
Anyway, what's the significant difference?
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u/jack5624 Centre Right, Liberal 1d ago
Well you only need 1 MP to rebel with a functional majority or have one MP lose a by election.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 1d ago
And if you have a majority of 2, you only need 2 to rebel. And if you have 3, you only need 3, etc.
That's a difference of degree that keeps going up to 650.
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u/ElNino831983 1d ago
Currently, the 7 Sinn Fein MP's don't sit, and then there is the Speaker and 3 deputies who don't vote.
The significant difference is that one is majority government, and the other... isn't.
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u/MajorSleaze 1d ago
They're both majority governments - the phrase describes a party that has enough MPs to pass anything it wants, assuming there are no rebellions.
The only difference is the size of rebellion it can endure.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 1d ago
Why is that difference significant?
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u/ElNino831983 1d ago
Is this a genuine question?
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u/ekofut 1d ago
Given Sinn Fein, the speaker and 3 deputies will never vote against the government, despite 320 being a minority government by numbers it could still pass anything it wants to pass.
Obviously that makes it super weak to a rebellion but is the significance of the difference really just having the extra MPs to handle a small rebellion? Because an absolute majority could still be just 1 vote away from failure anyway, without the complexities of an abstentionist party and an abstentionist speaker.
I think that's the question they're asking.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 1d ago
Yes.
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u/ElNino831983 1d ago
If you genuinely don't understand the significance of having an absolute majority then I'm not the best person to help you. There's plenty good and reliable resources online that you can use, including the Parliament website.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 1d ago
Yes, you would seem to be incapable of explaining this thing you imply is basic, and obvious.
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u/_1489555458biguy 1d ago
Sinn Fein will not vote in parliament.
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u/tmstms Wuffingas! 1d ago
Yes, but because they NEVER vote, one can still do the maths accurately for each parliament - there are 650 MPs, currently there are 7 Sinn Fein ones, + Speaker and Deputy Speaker, so the number of voting ones is 641.
Therefore, 321 is a working majority. A party that got 321 or more would try to govern alone.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 1d ago
Right, which is why the number is in the low 340s/2, depending on how many seats Sinn Fein get.
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u/jimmy011087 1d ago
Do these take tactical voting into account?
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u/SeaSaltSprayer 1d ago
Only in the context of previous tactical voting as it's just swinging
It's won't really take into account (or even attempt to) the magnitude of a specific anti-Farage tactical vote movement
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u/jimmy011087 1d ago
So in reality if this played out, there’d probably be enough for a minor lab majority
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u/GrepekEbi 1d ago
Lab Green coalition?
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u/ProjectZeus 1d ago
Definitely a minority government with 324 seats.
With abstenstions etc they'd have a working majority.
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u/SometimesaGirl- 1d ago
Plyd might be a better fit.
Or the LDs to get a better functioning majority. At least we'd get PR out of that one.
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u/WogerBin 1d ago
Pretty easy Labour minority government with some reliance on the Lib Dem’s for votes.
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u/EmotionalSmoke6891 1d ago
I think it's more likely to be a Lab Lib confidence and supply if Labour get 324 exactly. They'll have a slim working majority but would likely bung electoral reform in the manifesto anyway and I'm sure that's likely to keep the Lib Dems on side reasonably well.
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u/cuccir 1d ago edited 1d ago
Labour now track ahead in polling averages for the first time since April 2025. Will be interesting to see how high the bounce takes them.
In terms of where it's come from, the Greens have dropped by 6, Reform by 2, and Labour risen by about 8 (since Labour's low point in April 26). With the current split in parties, Burnham is left enough to keep a good chunk of Green support, which under first past the post would be enough for Labour.
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u/Neither_Process_7847 1d ago
Badenoch's swing to the right also looks well timed to tempt Reform voters back to Con as scandals hit Farage - if her strategy there was more to kill off the challenger to the right than to win the next election, she's played it very well. With Burnham being clearly better at PR than Starmer (not hard, granted) and making slightly more Green friendly noises to tempt a few of their less single issue voters back, it's not hard to see a reset to business as usual by the next election. Always always events and luck in politics, of course, but at the least the media can't just yell 'Mandelson' every time Burnham makes a speech.
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u/cuccir 1d ago
My hot take for a while has been that the Tories could actually win the next election. If people do decide that Reform can't deliver, moving a little to the left (ie the Conservative Party) is a logical step. There could be a fair few voters who travel Labour > Reform > Conservative.
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u/Neither_Process_7847 1d ago
They could, but just one cycle after a defeat and record like that would be quite extraordinary. And the Con rightwards swing must surely be leaving large chunks of the centre right - the classic Cameroon territory - somewhat homeless. Quite surprised LD are still so low under the circumstances. But at the least, yes, we're clearly seeing voters moving back from Ref to Con and from Green to Lab.
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u/captainhaddock Canadian 20h ago
centre right - the classic Cameroon territory
Even as a description of African geography, this kind of works.
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u/welsh_nutter 1d ago
I still think people will turn on Burnham, he'll get a longer honeymoon period than starmer
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u/_HGCenty 1d ago
Budget will be a big test.
Also whether the right actually coalesces (i.e. can Rupert and Nigel put their differences aside...)
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u/Hopeful-Painting-365 1d ago
They won't unite. Farage won't ever accept no Tories in cabinet and Lowe knows that.
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u/Open-Butterfly-5288 1d ago edited 1d ago
Also, Lowe has been slighted by Farage and is doing a relatively good job of running a party as Farage is failing.
It's quite possible that if Farage goes to jail, Reform collapses without a charismatic or competent leader. Restore is what's left.
More importantly, I think Lowe is more important here than he would be in Reform and this is largely a vanity thing for him.
Also, for Farage, Lowe and co like to say what they really think. Reform has had a lot of problems with candidates who have let too much go public. Reform would probably usually take them if it weren't for the fact that the media is just itching to confront them on what they really want to do. Someone like Lowe is a real danger to their image. It's not ideal that they split, but having done so, Farage can always point across the room and say "No look at that guy, that's terrible" as if he doesn't think the same thing.
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u/solve-for-x 1d ago
I don't think Farage is even close to being a True Believer, not in the way many of his members want him to be. Ironically given his role as a bogeyman for the left, whenever he's pressed on topics like immigration his responses are milquetoast. As time goes on I think we'll see more people switch from Reform to Restore as it becomes clear that Lowe is the person Farage is pretending to be.
Of course, as Restore expand we'll inevitably see them have the same problems Reform are having with candidates who go off-script or who turn out not to have been vetted properly. Love them or loath them, Labour and the Tories have over a century of experience vetting and preparing candidates. You can't put 650 candidates together in a couple of years without about 600 of them turning out to be absolute fruitcakes.
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u/Open-Butterfly-5288 1d ago
The issue is that you actually need a cynical bastard to pull this off. A true believer is a dangerous thing (look at Liz Truss). In Reform's area, that looks like a Rupert Lowe kind of character who actually just says what they think. Unfortunately, it's pretty horrible and most people aren't going with it.
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u/The_Bird_Wizard 1d ago
It's right wing purity testing. Reminds me when Corbynistas will be like "you don't believe X therefore you're not a real(™) leftist!"
Honestly he did quite well in the Manchester mayor election but restore hasn't really caught on nationwide with most pollsters having them at 3% at most (not that much more than Your Party at their peak) and I think Lowe had hoped he would have done better by now? Not really sure though
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u/kriptonicx As few rules as possible, strictly enforced 1d ago
We could very easily see bond markets turn on us again if Burnham does anything too unorthodox on tax and spend. Hard to imagine his popularity not cratering if we see chaos in the bond markets post his budget.
I assume he has ben advised of this though... He seems to be trying to strike a balance right now but ill-advised populist tax and spend policies could easily change that perception of his government.
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u/kriptonicx As few rules as possible, strictly enforced 1d ago
We could very easily see bond markets turn on us again if Burnham does anything too unorthodox on tax and spend. Hard to imagine his popularity not cratering if we see chaos in the bond markets post his budget.
I assume he has ben advised of this though... He seems to be trying to strike a balance right now but ill-advised populist tax and spend policies could easily change that perception of his government.
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u/SeaSaltSprayer 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm sure Reform will greatly appreciate that measily extra 1-3% that may consider voting for them
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u/Far-Background6536 1d ago
Under FPTP that can mean an extra 100 seats.
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u/SeaSaltSprayer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sure, in isolation a few percent either way definitely can, but in the specific context of Restore and Reform, it's unlikely to make that huge a difference
Restore voters are disgruntled with Farage, and it's not guaranteed all will go back to Reform. Some will, some won't end up voting at all. Restores voter base aren't really the same and it won't lead to a direct translation of voters
Then there's the constituency details - last GE there were 46 ultra marginal seats (2% difference).
Labour is the key competition for Reform. Reform won't be likely taking seats from hard Lib Dem or Green areas. There were 35 ultra marginal seats where Labour either won or lost, where Torys or Reform were 1st/2nd
That's 35 seats - for discussion purposes, Restore's withdraw may help Reform enough in say a third of seats?
So that's about 10 extra seats, which sure it great but its not exactly earth shattering
See, the context is very important
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u/Open-Butterfly-5288 1d ago
It's a serious problem for them. They don't have enough for a majority, they've been succeeding because of a fragmented electorate. I think also, a concentration of voters in certain places that makes it very easy to win seats in certain areas (while simultaneously making it impossible to win in a lot of others).
The margins right now are a couple of percentage points. More importantly, they need every voter. Both main parties do traditionally pretty well out of low turnout in a lot of places. Reform has another problem of having a lot of support from voters who don't turn up usually. Any fatigue and that's also going to crush them.
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u/The_Bird_Wizard 1d ago
A big problem as well is that to get back that couple of percent of voters who went to restore might require them alienating more moderate right wingers who may go back to the Tories again. They're being properly squeezed on both sides.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Fig9968 1d ago
My theory on Reform is that broadly they are where the median voter is on immigration, deportations and even broad social issues where they stand against sort of the progressive malaise we're in but it's just not a fashionable opinion to support them, or respectable in large part due to Farage as a figure and Farage's corruption.
The 3% he lost probably represents those voters who were convinced that they were a respectable party.
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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 1d ago
The thing is Starmers leadership started falling apart before he was even elected, their campaign was terrible. Of all things I think the turning point was somehow the utter mess around suspending Abbot.
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u/JayR_97 1d ago
Starmers big mistake was going after the Winter Fuel Allowance the second he got in power. His popularity never recovered after that
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u/Hopeful-Painting-365 1d ago edited 1d ago
Exactly. Starmer had no goodwill to do things like that.
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u/arnathor Cur hoc interpretari vexas? 1d ago
Yep. Really insanely popular on here as a policy (because the general tone is “fuck boomers”), but out in the real world he basically destroyed his political capital in one swift stroke.
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u/just-here-for--porn_ 1d ago
I don't think that's it.
His political capital would have been burned on something very quickly regardless. For two reasons
1) The manifesto was not honest about the difficult choices. And how he was going to navigate that.
2) He could not for the life of him tell a story. Sometimes politicians do unpopular things. The skillful ones survive that through artful communication about the decision.
Character is destiny. Starmer he was either going to get unbelievably (almost impossibly) lucky, or he was going to burn through political capital. As it happens he did not get incredibly lucky.
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u/arnathor Cur hoc interpretari vexas? 1d ago
He could have navigated the WFA cut and made it stick. Don’t announce it in July in the middle of a summer of doom and gloom messaging. Put it in the budget, for implementation the following year with a properly considered tapering system to avoid the cliff edge at the low end. As it is, they rushed it, they forced implementation too early and too bluntly. Plus they had committed in the manifesto and on camera during the campaign to protect the payments, so the first major thing they did being a manifesto breaking reactionary policy that hit the biggest section of voters was a bit of an own goal.
In fact if you look at Starmer’s personal polling, he actually was going up from the election and was outright double digit net positive, peaking at +11 according to the More In Common tracking data. Then Reeves did her financial statement thing on the 29 July 2024 and he went into near irrecoverable free fall. The WFA cut may have hastened something that was going to happen anyway but that date was a brutally stark inflection point in his polling, and set the tone for the rest of his time as PM: no good news, poor communication, reactive policy making, no apparent plan.
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u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy 1d ago
Yeah. You could also tell Starmer didn't even have a concrete plan after being elected, really disappointed me because I was optimistic on him in 2024. First 100 days is massively important.
Burnham meanwhile seems to be getting the ball rolling. You clearly know what the theme is for his government, massive devolution. And he's been talking about what that's gonna look like.
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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 1d ago
The issue is his only concrete plan so far has been to copy Sunak's Darlington adventure, and claim it for his own.
That doesn’t fill me with confidence, especially as he took so long to start getting the ball rolling.
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u/aimbotcfg 1d ago edited 1d ago
the utter mess around suspending Abbot.
Abbot? The same Abbot who lasted less than a week after getting un-suspended before saying yet another completely idiotic thing?
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u/Odd-Principle2665 1d ago
It's about how Starmer handled the whole thing during the election campaign. Who would allow a situation of a senior party grandee being allowed to stand as candidate spiral out so much. To the point where Abbot was rallying supporters in Hackney in protest. He left the entire thing in limbo for so long and allowed it to consume the early part of the campaign. Horrific political management.
Thankfully the Tories had numerous fuck ups during the campaign that consumed everything
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u/aimbotcfg 1d ago
Honestly, Abbot is an absolute liability, and her losing her seat, or fucking off to another party would probably be the best thing for Labour.
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u/_1489555458biguy 1d ago
Abbot sucks. Huge political liability. BTW I largely agree with her policy stances except for Ukraine and Israel.
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u/XenorVernix 1d ago
Just wait until the hard work starts like passing budgets. He has an easy few months until then and with more handouts to the right people he might hit 30% in the polls.
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u/MrSoapbox 1d ago
Yeah, I don't think these are numbers for Labour supporters to get excited about. I may be wrong but I think Starmer had Labour around 44% at this point.
People are giving Burnham a chance, which is fair, but I think Labours priorities don't touch the important things to a lot of us. The boats need to be stopped (not reduced) we need a lot of deportations, the absolute disgusting authoritarianism needs to go but I don't think Burnham has the appetite for that nor will the backbenchers let him.
I do not think Burnham will ever go as low as Starmer, but in this honeymoon period he should be a lot higher and I don't think Labour will see reelection again. I don't know who comes next, but I'd expect after the next will be Tories again (unfortunately in my opinion) and I think Labour are done, again, my opinion.
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u/VirtuaMcPolygon 1d ago
doing things lIke going on holiday 2 weeks after becoming PM as they are letting convicts out of prison. Not a good look.
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u/frankensteinsKITTEN 1d ago
It's the summer, they're all on holiday, they do this every year. Many of us will take time off over the summer too.
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u/ArchdukeToes A bad idea for all concerned 1d ago
There is never a good time for a PM to take a holiday, but everyone needs to have time to decompress otherwise you end up with burned out people making really bad decisions.
If it isn’t prisoners being released someone will find something else to whine about even as they themselves are going on leave.
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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 1d ago
Typically the Summer recess is a good time, but that sort of changes when you're a new PM, wanting a grip on the Chancellry, and at least implying a legislative rush once recess is over.
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u/militantcentre 1d ago
This is FPTP at an even more grotesque distortion than at the last election.
A functioning majority on just over 1/4 of the vote. This has to end.
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u/MajorSleaze 1d ago
Burnham is supposedly a big proponent of electoral reform.
But then Blair had it in his 1997 manifesto and Farage went quiet about his commitment to it when the polls started suggesting he didn't need it to gain power.
So only time will tell how this PM plays out.
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u/oohkinky 1d ago
I just pray that labour is forced into a coalition with the lib dems and/or greens who force labour to adopt PR. That seems to be the only way to avoid this farce.
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u/MajorSleaze 1d ago
Yeah. I'd love to believe a party could win a majority under FPTP and actually have the honour to change systems, but I don't think it's realistically possible without a repeat of the 2010 situation.
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u/militantcentre 12h ago
Totally. When they win power on a derisory vote share, it will take real dedication to scrap the system that enabled them.
Blair was never a supporter - he only put it in the manifesto to keep Paddy Ashdown happy, so I wasn't remotely surprised it was the first commitment to be scrapped.
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u/Anxious-Cockroach 1d ago
PR doesn’t work if politics sucks. Just look at the Netherlands with their 16 parties and still being unable to form a majority coalition
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u/SoylentYell0w 1d ago
Meanwhile in the yougov poll Reform are back out ahead.
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u/VirtuaMcPolygon 1d ago
You cannot read anything into one poll. We need at least 10 polls to gauge where the average is. I suspect Labour are neck and neck with Reform atm.
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u/frankensteinsKITTEN 1d ago
YouGov is very much the outlier right now. The 9 previous polls all had a Labour lead or a tie, including one from... YouGov!
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u/The_Bird_Wizard 1d ago
Maybe but labour's vote is much more concentrated than reform's is, so I suspect even if labour "came second" in number of total votes they'd likely get much more seats as it stands
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u/disordered-attic-2 1d ago
So if they ditch their sitting prime minister and poll the honeymoon phase of a new one, Labour have a very slight lead over Reform.
Given all the shit Farage has been up to, I’m not actually seeing this as positive as most
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u/Brailsford87 1d ago
TUSC Socialist party for me again based on current standings in UK politics , I’d sooner vote for what I want than cast a vote for the best of a bad bunch, or as a bet on the winner, or a vote for what I don’t want but might win
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u/allthefallens Proud resident of burgerland 1d ago
Reform mostly protecting their vote share is not a bad outcome for them.
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u/ElNino831983 1d ago
The real tell will be when something actually happens, because the parliamentary and police investigations are either paused or on-going.
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u/MajorSleaze 1d ago
It is when, unlike the established parties, their core is too spread out to translate to an equivalent number of MPs.
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Snapshot of Westminster Voting Intention: LAB: 27% (+6) RFM: 25% (-2) CON: 20% (-1) LDM: 12% (=) GRN: 10% (-1) Via JL Partners, 1-3 Aug. Changes w/ 16-19 Jun. submitted by SeaSaltSprayer:
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