Changespotting: Why Labour needs to choose life - and a progressive majority

By Matthew McGregor, CEO of 38 Degrees

‘Without tangible change, voters will keep voting to fire the politicians who are in office and Reform is the next ‘change’ cab off the rank.’ - Matthew McGregor provides the mirror image of Best for Britain’s Decoding Populism study - who are the voters who can deny Farage the keys to Number 10?

Like many of the people who read this Substack, I’ve recently come back from the Labour Party’s conference in Liverpool. The theme – in conversations at fringe events, in media broadcasts and even in ministers’ speeches, and, of course, in the bars – was what can opponents of populism do to beat back Reform.

The government is unpopular with voters because put simply, since the election , people haven’t yet felt their own circumstances improving — whether that’s having more spare cash at the end of the month, or being able to get the NHS care they and their loved ones need when they need it. This is putting Reform UK in pole position for the next election, but it’s not out of love for Nigel Farage, rather it’s desperation for someone to come in and change the country. We know this is the case because of a huge poll we commissioned and I wanted to share what we learned from it.

Change wins versus more of the same

To try and understand the question dominating politics at the moment, 38 Degrees commissioned a big MRP poll ahead of conference season, giving us constituency level data on the experiences, opinions and hopes of voters across the county. With this, we wanted to understand who people are currently thinking of voting for. But more than that, we wanted to understand what issues they want politicians to prioritise. We asked pollsters at Survation to find out what policies would increase their confidence in the government, as well as how things are feeling for people generally right now.

The results were stark. If an election were held today, Reform would come close to an