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Polls show Starmer’s desperate grab for Reform voters isn’t working

Keir Starmer’s Labour has increasingly spent its time in government trying to mimic Reform UK. But new YouGov polling shows Labour has courted Reform voters and have nothing to show for it.

According to the numbers, Labour’s ‘Reform lite’ strategy has failed to make any meaningful difference in how Reform voters see the party. Because the net approval rating among 2024 Reform voters stayed exactly the same (i.e. that they resoundingly hate Labour).

At the same time, however, the tactic of pandering to the far right has pushed massive chunks of the voting population away from Labour. And the approval ratings among 2024 Labour voters themselves saw the biggest drop.

Starmer familiar with resounding failure

Labour has disappointed all voters in most areas, but particularly on unemployment, taxation, and welfare. Other top issues 2024 Labour voters in particular think the party has been handling worse and worse are the economy, housing, inflation, the NHS, crime, and the environment.

The government has focused on feeding into a toxic immigration debate, and little else. By doing so, it hasn’t just abandoned people of colour. It has also failed to bring the meaningful change that the majority of the country are calling out for after decades of politicians transferring wealth and power away from ordinary people and into the pockets of a tiny group of obscenely rich individuals.

Corporate stooge Starmer, meanwhile, continues to cement his position as least popular prime minister ever. He may have impressed an extra 1% of Reform voters (who still overwhelmingly hate him), but he has absolutely tanked among all other voters. And the negative change of opinion among 2024 Labour voters in particular has been the biggest:

Labour chose its path, and people don’t like it

It didn’t have to be this way, of course. But the dodgy millionaire donations Labour’s top politicians got always came with a price tag. They couldn’t do anything to challenge the system in any meaningful way, either at home or abroad. And they haven’t.

While many people in 2024 justifiably just wanted to get rid of the Tories, the same operation in different clothing was never going to impress. And that’s why Labour has had such an awful year.

Like a cunning wolf in sheep’s clothing, Reform has tried to position itself as an outsider (despite serving exactly the same corporate interests as the Tories and Labour). And it has managed to convince a chunk of voters of that.

However, 2025 also saw a big new challenge to Reform’s deception from the Greens under new leader Zack Polanski. And in terms of the polling, that’s the biggest cause for hope. Because people are increasingly looking to Polanski’s party as the main opponent to the Reform-Labour-Tory axis.

And that momentum only looks likely to continue in the coming weeks.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.