Helm-Deltapoll Conservative Voter Monitor / Wave 2
The full tables for the survey are available here
1. Background
The second wave of the Helm-Deltapoll Panel of 2019 Conservative voters has now been completed.
Fieldwork for the survey was carried out by Deltapoll between 7 and 15 March 2024 i.e. immediately after the budget, and a month after the first wave.
All respondents from the first wave were invited to take part again, with about 300 (20 per cent) doing so. The overall makeup of the sample matches that of the first wave and is intended to be representative of all 2019 Conservative voters. However minor changes from wave to wave in the findings of repeated questions could be attributable to sampling variation and may not be significant.
2. The Tory Retention Rate Reduces Further
The Monitor shows fewer than half of 2019 Conservatives are sticking with them (a group described below as “Loyal Tories”), down from 54% in February. Labour is up from 14% to 16%, but the big shift is to Reform UK, now claiming the support of almost one in five of those who voted Tory four years ago and up from 13% a month ago. Their rise is partly at the expense of the undecided who are at 10% compared with 12% in February.
Figure 1: Current Voting Intention
Reform’s steady advance has been the only significant new development in the polls in the last eighteen months, and it must have been given at least a short term boost by the defection of Lee Anderson which took place while the fieldwork for the Monitor was being carried out. The profile of their switchers from the Tories (which make up the large bulk of their support) is set out in more detail in the final section of this note.
The level of switching from Conservative to Labour now roughly matches that which Tony Blair achieved in 1997 when the best estimate is that he attracted the support of about one in seven of those who had voted Tory in 1992. The figures may still seem modest, but they are the benchmark of a genuine change of mood in the electorate as a whole, as large-scale direct switching between the two main parties has historically been quite rare, especially in Labour’s favour. By itself the 16% switching to Labour equates to a swing of about 7% which would almost be enough for Labour to become the largest party even without any other Tory losses.
However underlying this further fragmentation of the Tory vote has been a marked increase in potential fluidity with more voters conceding that they may change their minds before polling day and fewer saying they are fairly sure who they will vote for. While the figures among the reduced numbers of loyal Tories are about the same as in February, just 57% of Labour switchers say they are fairly sure who they will vote for, down from 68% a month ago, with an equivalent figure for Reform switchers of 51%, down from 57%. This may be an indicator that the recent switchers are rather more fickle and worryingly for Labour might suggest that Reform’s greater profile is attracting some interest among their own switchers.
Figure 2: Strength of Current Vote Choice
Despite the shifts in voting intention, the balance of preference between a Starmer-led Labour government and a Sunak-led Conservative one is broadly unchanged, with 57% preferring the latter and 20% the former. Preference for Labour is almost universal among and exclusive to switchers to Labour, and the key for Sunak’s prospects of augmenting the Tories’ ratings is to make inroads into the 40% or so of Reform switchers and Undecideds who claim they cannot choose between the two major parties.
Figure 3: Preferred Government
3. Economic Gloom is Endemic
Post-budget polling has shown that overall voters supported most of the measures, or at least found them unobjectionable. Rishi Sunak’s electoral plan centres on a recovery of the national economy, a reduction in the rate of inflation and tax cuts creating some sense that people will feel better off. The February Monitor showed that the “sticking to the plan” mantra had some resonance, but this survey shows a lack of confidence even among previous Tory voters in the likely effectiveness of Jeremy Hunt’s economic measures.
Figure 4: Confidence in the Government's Economic Policies
Given that level of scepticism, it is not surprising that very few expect to be better off by the time of the election.
Figure 5: Household Finance Expectations
Rather than a considered analysis of their real economic circumstances, we should interpret these findings as a product of the “broken Britain” mindset, the sense of a spiral of decline which while it may be partly attributable to the failures of government is beyond the ability of politicians to affect. That is borne out in the intensity of the belief that Keir Starmer’s Labour would if anything present a worse prospect.
Figure 6. Expectations of a Labour Government
Of course it may be that switchers to Labour have been convinced to shift their support because of their belief that Labour would make them much better off, but a more convincing reading of these results would be that claimed perceptions of economic optimism are correlated with party support; Labour supporters believe as a matter of principle that their party would do better, switchers to Reform believe as a matter of culture that all mainstream politicians of whatever party make things worse.
4. Brexit – Pragmatism not ideology
The political divides between and within the major parties have in recent years been strongly associated with the Brexit vote in 2016. The variously-defined “Red” and “Blue” Walls are essentially the electoral products of the two sides of the Brexit debate which cut across many of the voting patterns which we have been used to. It has been suggested by some that those divides explain the way the 2019 Tory vote has splintered with switchers to Labour and the Liberal Democrats being mainly Remain voters and switchers to Reform being ideological Brexiteers.
There is obviously considerable truth in these assumptions, but the Helm-Deltapoll monitor reveals a that they are too simplistic.
Overall 60% of 2019 Conservatives now believe that Brexit was right for Britain, which includes 21% of those who voted Remain (explained perhaps by a kind of loyalty to anything the Tories have achieved). Some 34% believe that it was wrong for Britain including 17% of those who voted Leave. Among switchers to Labour the balance is 40% Right to 53% Wrong which belies the suggestion that Brexit is an explainer of the disintegration of the Tory vote. Even among Reform voters some 17% believe that Brexit was wrong for Britain.
Figure 7: Was Brexit right or wrong for Britain?
In respect of Britain’s future relationship with the EU, views are equally varied and nuanced. Overall 27% take a view that Britain should further loosen its ties with European institutions, including 25% of Loyal Tories and 53% of switchers to Reform, but even 11% of switchers to Labour. Against this, 46% (21% of Reform switchers) believe Britain should be strengthening its ties to the EU, including 17% believing in potentially rejoining.
Figure 8. Britain’s Future Relationship with Europe
5. Turning the tide of Reform?
Not surprisingly Tory backbenchers are now almost entirely focused on the burgeoning numbers of defectors to Reform rather than the much more damaging if smaller numbers of defectors to Labour. Rather than having to address the intangible sense of “Time for a Change”, it allows them to concentrate on the same arguments which in one form or another have split the Conservative Party for the last 35 years.
Reform’s popularity is now at roughly the level which UKIP reached in 2012 and 2013, before being boosted by their by-election successes in Clacton and Rochester & Strood. The polls in early 2015 turned out to be reasonably good predictors of the 12.9 per cent of the vote which they eventually received in the general election.
Prior to that election, very few people would have believed that it was possible for the Tories to win an overall majority at the same time as UKIP were taking more than one in ten votes. As with Reform now, UKIP was to be explained largely as a split on the right of the Tory Party which would potentially lead to the loss of numerous marginal seats without Labour having to add many votes of its own.
In the event the evidence is that UKIP had expanded its appeal beyond the right of the Conservative Party and took significant numbers of votes from those who had voted for Labour and the Liberal Democrats in 2010 and that while immigration and the EU were central concerns of most of their voters, they had a broader reach to those of various political perspectives as a catch-all anti-establishment party. Many of those 2015 UKIP voters went on to vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 election.
The Helm-Deltapoll Monitor suggests that, at least as far as 2019 Tories are concerned, as Reform’s support is expanding, that ideological dilution may be re-merging.
The proportion of Switchers to Reform increases through the age bands culminating in about one in four of those aged over 65 among whom switching to Labour at 10% is at its lowest. They comprise 23% of male 2019 Tories and 14% of female, 25% of those who voted Leave and 5% of those who voted Remain. Among the 6% who voted UKIP at any point between 2010 and 2017, 45% are now intending to vote Reform, along with 16% of those who voted Labour in that period. Of those who voted Labour at least once between 2010 and 2017, 40% have now switched to Labour again.
Perhaps more surprisingly there is barely any difference in the proportions switching to Reform among middle class (ABC1) and working class (C2DE) voters, nor between those with or without a university education.
When asked what should be the three top policy priorities for government, the switchers to Reform retain a distinctive focus on immigration and Brexit which far exceeds that of Loyal Tories. On the other hand, barely any of them choose Net Zero or reducing social divisions. But while sceptical about additional public spending they, like all the other groups, place cutting NHS waiting lists in their top three concerns, equal with reducing inflation and interest rates. The lower priority given to reducing interest rates might be thought to be attributable to the high proportion of pensioners (with savings) among Reform switchers. But in fact, of all age groups that particular policy area rates highest among pensioners, suggesting that the Reform switchers are politically distinct from the rest of their generation - which after all comprises much of the core Conservative vote.
Figure 9. Priorities for Government
Wave 1 of the Monitor received some publicity for its findings on possible alternative leaders and in particular the popularity of Penny Mordaunt, who has now emerged as the likeliest candidate to replace Sunak were his MPs to seek to remove him before the election. What the poll actually showed was not that Mordaunt was necessarily regarded as a better (potential) leader than Sunak, but that uniquely among those candidates offered, slightly more though she would improve the Tories’ election prospects than believed she would worsen them.
Wave 2 looks at the profiles of the icons of the discontented right of the Tory party, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.
Johnson remains reasonably well thought of. By 61%-34% 2019 Tories believe he has been a positive influence for Britain, with the figures among Loyal Tories and Reform switchers almost identical at roughly 70%-25%. The overall positive figures were however reversed among switchers to Labour. His positive margin was 50%-45% among Remain voters and 66%-29% among Leave voters.
On a separate question the findings were very similar on whether Johnson had been a positive or negative influence for the Conservative Party.
When asked whether his return as leader would make respondents more or less likely to vote Conservative, they were roughly evenly divided.
Figure 10. Boris Johnson as Conservative Leader
Aside from the intensity of view among those Labour switchers for whom he would make them less likely to vote Tory, there is not much remarkable here. For a party in such electoral plight and a sample containing a large number of discontented voters all of whom voted for Johnson four years ago, the large plurality overall of people saying his return would make no difference is what stands out. The figures are not markedly different between Loyal Tories and Reform switchers and there is no sense that Johnson would transform Tory prospects.
Figure 11: Nigel Farage and the Conservatives
The figures for Farage are quite similar with the exception of the Reform switchers, for whom he still clearly remains an iconic symbol not just of a focus on immigration but as a tormentor of mainstream politics. The tiny number of dissenters among them who would be discouraged from voting Tory by his campaigning for them is much smaller than those who are out on a limb on Brexit or whether they prefer a Labour or Tory government. To all intents and purposes, he and his persona are the glue holding together Reform’s expanding body of support.