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Labour on course for majority with 15-point lead

02 July 2024

Verian’s final poll before the 2024 UK General Election shows Labour remain on course for a majority, although their lead has fallen to 15-points this week.

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Verian’s final UK General Election 2024 poll reveals:

  • Labour’s lead over the Conservatives has fallen to 15-points, although they remain on course for a substantial majority.
  • Labour leads among all age groups of likely voters, except those age 65 plus.
  • Labour is retaining the majority of their 2019 voters, while Conservative 2019 voters are more likely to have moved towards other parties – particularly Reform UK.
  • Reform UK have the third highest vote share – notably, their support is higher among men than women

Verian’s research took place between the afternoon of 28th June and the morning of 1st July 2024, using our Public Voice random sample panel. Our restrictive method of panel-building – randomly selecting GB residents to invite rather than allowing self-selection by panellists- provides benefits in terms of sample and data quality when compared to many other panels used in the UK for polling. 

General Election voting intentions (21st June - 24th June)

Voting Intention_2606 4-1

    • Labour 36% (-2 vs previous poll published on 26th June )
    • Conservative 21% (no change)
    • Reform UK 16% (no change) 
    • Liberal Democrat 13% (+1)
    • Green 7% (-1)
    • SNP 3% (no change)
    • Other 4% (+2)

Since our first poll on 5th June, Labours lead has fallen slightly from 18-points to 15-points. Vote share for both major parties has decreased over the last 5 weeks, while Reform UK support has increased by 7-points. It appears likely that some 2019 Conservative voters who were intending to vote for Labour at the start of the campaign, have now switched to Reform UK. 

Verian's UK CEO, Craig Watkins, comments:

"While Labour support has decreased a little over the course of the campaign they are still on course for a large majority and to be the governing party. This is due to the substantial fifteen point lead they hold over the Conservative party. The First Past the Post system is also generally punishing to parties that have support under 25%, unless their support is highly geographically concentrated. Current evidence suggests that the Conservative party support is not optimally distributed, and that they will therefore lose in many constituencies. A more extreme example is Reform UK, where despite having a higher national vote share than the Liberal Democrats they are likely to win in substantially fewer constituencies. The Reform UK vote share appears to be fairly widely geographically distributed with few constituencies in which they lead. In contrast, Liberal Democrat support is more concentrated and is more likely to benefit from local tactical voting."

Key differences in voting intention by age

Important Issues_2606 copy 2 2

Party choice in 2024 varies substantially with voters' age. Labour is the most popular choice of all age groups up to age 65 and overwhelmingly so (more than twice the next party) up to about age 50.

The Conservatives are the most popular party among those aged 65+ but are slightly less popular than Reform up to about age 50. Fewer than 10% of those in their 20s and early 30s support the Conservatives.

The Green party is the second most popular choice among young voters but sinks to fifth from around age 35. Reform's support peaks among those in their 60s but is markedly lower among younger and older people. Alone among the five GB-wide parties, the Liberal Democrat vote share is roughly the same right across the age range. Their vote is more geographically than demographically concentrated.

Key differences in voting intentions by 2019 vote

Sankey of composition of 2024 vote in terms of 2019 vote

This chart shows what each party's current prospective voters did in the 2019 general election. For example, Labour's 36% vote share in 2024 is built mainly from 2019 Labour voters (20 of the 36 points), but 7 points come from people who did not vote in 2019 and 4 points each come from Conservative and Liberal Democrat 2019 voters. 

We can also see the general dispersal of the 2019 Conservative vote across multiple parties in 2024. In particular, two thirds of Reform UK supporters voted Conservative in 2019. 

While Labour has attracted more 'new' voters than any other party in 2024, it has also lost voters from the Corbyn era: for example, two in five prospective Green 2024 supporters voted Labour in 2019.

Key differences in voting intention by gender

Among likely voters, men and women support the two major parties in roughly the same proportion:

  • 36% of men and 37 % of women intend to vote for Labour
  • 21% of men and 22% of women intend to vote for the Conservative party

However, there are differences for the smaller parties:

  • Men are more likely than women to support Reform UK (20% vs 12%)
  • Women are more likely than men to support both the Liberal Democrats (14% vs 11%) and the Green party (9% vs 6%)

Methodological information

A total of 2,135 interviews were conducted online among adults living in Great Britain between the afternoon of the 28th June and the morning of 1st July 2024. The survey data tables and further details on the methodological approach and weighting can be found on the Verian website.

Our sample was drawn from Verian’s random sample panel Public Voice. This panel is used extensively for social research commissioned by government, academic and third sector organisations, including those based in the US and Europe. Membership of this panel is restricted to those living in a controlled sample of UK addresses drawn from the Royal Mail’s master database. This restrictive method of panel-building is relatively expensive but will ordinarily provide benefits in terms of sample and data quality when compared with a panel that any adult resident in the UK can join. Although the short-period fieldwork web-only protocol used for this poll is more limited than is typical for a social research survey, the demographic and political composition of the sample is only modestly degraded compared to what could be obtained using the full social research data collection protocol (two to three weeks using both web and telephone interview modes).

The data was weighted to match population totals for age, gender, 2019 General Election voting patterns, 2016 EU referendum voting patterns, education, region, and likelihood to vote in the next General Election.

 

Previous UK polling

 

Media enquiries

For further information on any of the data and findings from the report please contact Lois.Taylor@veriangroup.com or PressEnquiries@veriangroup.com 

Richard Crawshaw Headshot
Richard Crawshaw

Senior Research Scientist
United Kingdom

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