Attached are:

• The full report and analysis
• A summary deck of key charts ('just give me the graphs') with minimal commentary

MRP details mentioned in the report are at the bottom of this page.

This research first appeared in the Financial Times.

What we wanted to find out

• How much of Labour’s vote in key seats is genuinely susceptible to voting for Reform at the next election?
• What are the different factors or issues that might persuade them to Reform? What might persuade them from doing so?
• How do these voters' demographics, values and issue attitudes compare to the wider Reform and Labour vote?
• What coalitional trade-offs do they present Labour especially, and is there any way these can be resolved?

What we did

• Four exploratory focus groups with potential Labour to Reform switchers, held in seats where Labour are first and Reform are second.
• A GB-wide survey of 4,531 adults, weighted to be nationally representative, commissioned through YouGov. We added to this a boosted sample of 815 ‘Reform curious Labour voters’ (Labour 2024, >5/10 willing to vote Reform at the next election) and a 1,000 person dedicated survey of Wales.
• In addition, MRP analysis was conducted for Persuasion by YouGov.
• Two discrete conjoint experiments were conducted via NorStat.
• Analysis of existing datasets was undertaken, including British Election Study and others.

What we discovered

• Historically speaking, there is not much overlap between the Reform and Labour voters.
• A pool of potential switchers to Reform does exist inside the Labour vote. However, they are only one small part of what is an increasingly complex electoral coalition for the government.
• Reform curious Labour voters are demographically similar to the Reform vote, and have in common a strong social conservatism. However, unlike the Reform vote, they generally have left-leaning populist views on economics.
• Asylum and the small boats crisis appears a big push factor to Reform, as well as a general nihilism and pessimism with the two party systems.
• However, Reform curious Labour voters differ in important ways to the Reform vote. For instance, they are less drawn to Reform's anti-Net Zero positioning.
• Anxieties over Reform's proximity to Trump, Putin and extreme figures generally give these voters pause for thought.
• Labour can unite its coalition with relatively moderate stance on cultural issues while leaning into progressive positions on economics.
• Reform can win more of these voters by combining robust, but not overly extreme, anti-immigration and asylum positions with running to the left of Labour on economics.

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