Labour’s share of the vote in 31 so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats actually declined at this year’s general election despite the party’s landslide victory, new analysis suggests.
A Substack post today by polling expert and former YouGov president Peter Kellner showed that the average Labour vote tally in 31 Red Wall seats it won back actually dropped by 764 votes to 16,986, but the Tories’ vote fell so much more that it handed Labour victory. Kellner claimed it challenged much of the prevailing narrative about Labour’s apparent Red Wall triumph, calling it a “myth”.
Although Labour managed to take back these seats, the analysis suggests this was far more a product of the collapse of the Conservatives and voters shifting to Reform UK than a product of support flocking back directly to Labour.
Kellner noted that the average support for the Tories plummeted from from 22,450 to 10,018 votes. “Most of the defectors switched to Reform, whose average support in these seats was 8,426. That is where the pro-Brexit, anti-Tory vote went. Labour’s gains were the fortuitous by-product of this split on the Right,” he wrote.
The term ‘Red Wall’ was popularised around the time of the 2019 general election in reference to traditionally safe Labour seats across the North and the Midlands that fell to the Tories – especially in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Kneller’s analysis added that lower turnout played a large factor in these findings, with Labour’s share of the total vote rising by 3.8% from 2019 to 2024, despite a fall in the average raw number of votes.
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He added: “We can go further. Population movements and successive boundary changes hinder precise comparisons with past decades; however, in terms of overall votes, it is clear that in July Labour’s Red Wall popularity slumped to its lowest for at least 40 years – and possibly far longer.”
Writing in Prospect magazine last month, Kellner made a similar warning, noting across the country Labour won some 56 seats where its actual vote tally fell. He claimed that “as many as 144 Labour MPs would not now be in parliament had all the Tory and Reform voters lined up behind a single candidate”.
He added: “A revived Tory party that sees off Reform could cost Labour its majority, even if it wins exactly the same number of votes in every constituency as it did this year. To be sure of victory, Labour must win back the past voters that deserted it this time.”
Labour declined to comment.
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