New poll finds only privileged people will vote for Labour - but why?

[ProudAmberTurtle]

This is a new IPSOS poll. It finds that among the least well off in society, support for Labour has collapsed - it's now just 10%.

Even among people who are 'just about coping' financially, they're a distant fourth in the polls, and would be wiped out if it was just them voting.

But - here's what might be surprising - among wealthy people they are first in the polls, in fact their lead is so big that if only rich people could vote, it would be a landslide for Labour.

Any thoughts as to why it is now that only the most privileged people in society are voting Labour?

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2026-04/Ipsos%20Apr%202026_Political%20Monitor%20charts_Public.pdf

Why? Because wealthy people have savings and trust funds, and can sit through Labour's disastrous economic policies without any inconvenience to themselves.
Because they can afford higher food prices, fluctuating mortgage rates and vat on their child's education.
They can buy their children houses and pay their university fees.
And they'll be there to take advantage as those who are struggling, go under.

Do you imagine Blair's children have student debt or mortgages?

You can't tell that from the data in that report.

Because Labour are the new Conservatives?

Only people who have surplus money can afford to be altruistic and happy to handover money that they could use for their own kids to other people’s.

The people that are actually benefitting from Labour are too busy getting upset about immigrants 🤷‍♀️.

It's the same in the US with the Democrats they are voted for by the 'coastal elite' while the working classes vote for Trump.
Hilary Clinton called the working classes a 'basket of deplorables' and Labour has moved away from wanting to represent the origional working class white communities that it represented. A Labour voter is more likely to be an Emily Maiiliss type than my uncle in the local pub in Hull.

"Self-reported financial situation" will skew it, surely? I've known people living mortgage-free with a six-figure household income who acted like they were about to go off a cliff...

Which is precisely why I, holding a PhD, and my equally well-educated DH are voting for whoever in our ward is going to get rid of Labour. We fall into the category of well-educated financially secure and have both been not only active in the Labour Party for several decades, but have stood and served as LP councillors. But we see the rot now with anyone who had principles being deselected or kicked out. All that is left are unprincipled career politicians at both local and national level, who say anything, do anything, promise the earth in order to remain in power. I'm politically homeless right now, but I'm dead certain that Labour is not "better" than any thing else on offer. And I'm looking forward to them being booted out of running my local council and come the GE, my current MP looking for another job.

Your uncle in the pub in Hull might have self reported in this poll as "comfortably off".

But the OP of this thread has decided to redefine that as "privileged".

Indeed, your Hull uncle might have benefited from labour policy that he can spend time in the pub.

It becomes a class thing if you create a dichotomy between "educated" and "uneducated", when in fact it's more about whether you have enough relevant knowledge. A neurosurgeon, a PhD scientist, and an architect are all highly educated but not in areas which would equip them to make better political/voting decisions than other reasonably intelligent people with a lower level of education.

The poll is saying that people who feel worried about money are going to vote for something different than the party currently in power. Nothing odd about that. Presumably they are hoping that a change will improve things. That was the case at the last election too and why Labour got in.
I don't think that equates to "only priviledged people vote Labour."
I do think in general that people care about local stuff affecting their own families and communities, eg potholes, prices, crime, access to doctors etc, far more than the Westminster village type stuff that the media seems to focus on (Mandelson scandal, Starmer has to go etc). If potholes, cost of living, and doctors appointments were sorted the fringe parties wouldn't have a chance.

It's because listening to London-based politicians who represent a London consituency and have barely left London for 30 years feels ridiculous if you live outside London and the home counties. Too few decision-makers have any real idea of what life is like in a left-behind region where there are almost no jobs going, where there is little to no public transport, whence a peak train into London costs £80 a pop. Rural poverty is very different to urban poverty and social mobility is much lower in rural areas. Farage and his ilk know this and predate upon it.

Probably as if you’re actually quite well off you won’t resent the current policies where as for most of the just about/struggling to manage you feel like anything you are able to earn extra etc constantly gets taken away from you. When I was on benefits I was resentful of the fact that my standard of living had nothing to do with what I’d achieved/how hard I worked and now not on any benefits but little increase in standard or living I still feel that, my DH is a higher rate tax payer but we’ve just had to cancel our kids swimming lessons. Everyone either gets lumped into being assumed as rich I.e not on benefits or on benefits and entitled to free things we could never afford for our kids like a day out at Legoland etc. Thank goodness organisations like the scouts etc don’t means test their provision and just try and provide something that would be affordable for everyone

Everyone interested in British politics should read this post!

Mortgage rates fluctuated far more under the Tory party’s policy of using them for political gain. One of the first things Blair did when assuming office, was to grant the BofE independence to set interest rates.

And I don’t imagine Boris Johnson’s children will struggle in life any more than Tony Blair’s but as is always the case, Tories are ‘allowed’ to be wealthy, use private education and live what many consider a privileged life whereas Labour MPs/PMs are berated for the same.

Why ?

Peoples politics change. For every financially secure PhD moving to become conservative, there are loads of students starting out wearing Che Guevara tee shirts.

Is that not the natural order of things ?

edit - formatting.

Ideologically pure ex Labourites spitting their dummies out?

Well I’m confused as I thought all the millionaires had left due to labour?

And why are people on benefits more likely to vote Reform?!

Quote "And why are people on benefits more likely to vote Reform?!"

I suspect people posting on social media misrepresenting poll data might play a part ?

I’m in a different country. Our leftist party does still have the economic policy that best supports the least privileged in society. It also supports social policy that does not negatively impact the most privileged in any meaningful way, but can actually create practical difficulties for people without economic power.

I won’t vote conservative because they do more harm than good, even if there are a few places I think they might be helping marginalized people. It’s easy for me to look at the big picture when it’s not my day to day life being impacted.

This is a great post and why tribal politics is pointless.

You think Blair’s dc are representative of much of the population? Wealthy enough to have trust funds, pay schools fees, buy your dc houses is not your average labour voter or comfortably off person!

Because populism and fascism flourish when there are economic difficulties; they always have. This should be a surprise to no one. Germany post WW1 is a clear example. It’s not a surprise that the people who are doing the worst want to vote Reform; we already saw this in America. People no longer vote for people who love the things they love. They seem to all be voting for whoever hates the people they hate. Also, every party uses misleading propaganda. I would NEVER have voted for a party who supported Brexit after Brexit, since it was obvious how much the proponents lied about everything, and since it’s been such an absolute shit show, BUT, yes. The people who voted Brexit are now Reform voters, so I guess they enjoyed being lied to about Brexit so much that they want Reform to have a chance to lie to them about everything. They want to blame everything, from the NHS being underfunded to potholes, on “furriners”. The truth is… it’s just more of this regularly scheduled late-capitalist hellscape. As long as the largest corporations are run by (occasionally psychotic) male narcissists, nothing will get any better, since it’s the corporations that have the power.

Single policy voting. A staple of US politics being imported into the UK. "Never mind about all that, what matters is trans in bathrooms".

Other policies don't matter if you can enlarge the single issue core. So always crowbar it in.

Absolutely and I think that’s where the issue lies, people hear this talk of any child in a family on UC being classed as in poverty and roll their eyes. I wouldn’t want any child to go without a decent life in but in efforts to equalise things for everyone and the assumptions made, those not on benefits but struggling feel their children go without many of the things they see families they know are on benefits enjoy due to HAF, heavy subsidies etc. I think a lot of this is caused by taxing parents as if they had no children so unless you’re on benefits your children get ignored economically

Maybe. But look at the data in the report.

Screen clip attached. All the categories are pretty flat. " Comfortably off" is interesting. A peak in dec '22 at 23%. Then a slow gradient down to a wobble end of '25 to now. Precarious and ext vulnerable both went down a fair bit in that same time period ( end lst year to now). But the data appears to be more a trend between Mar 23 and now. So difficult to tell.

Consider this. If you had a nation that had a universal basic income, and allocated low rent housing, then the % of people that self report as "comfortably off" would be high. No matter the taxation levels.