Labour has been warned that its relationship with the working class is broken, as stark new analysis shows it is increasingly becoming the party of the wealthy.
New analysis by YouGov shows Britons earning more than £70,000 are now more likely to vote for Labour than any other party in a shock turnaround in UK politics.
Poorer voters have turned to Reform, whose popularity is soaring in the polls. Nigel Farage has declared that his party is “now the real party of the working class”.
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer was forced into a U-turn over plans to slash benefits for the poorest and disabled in a stand-off which calls into question his own authority, less than a year in office. The prime minister needed the £5bn a year savings, but faced a rebellion from 122 Labour MPs who signed an amendment designed to kill his welfare reform bill.
Leading pollster Robert Hayward warned that the findings were part of a trend which has seen Labour’s traditional relationship with the working class “broken”.
He said: “The working class has always been socially conservative but dependent on the state, so voted Labour. The link has been broken – firstly by Brexit, then by immigration.
“There is now a fairly large cohort of the upper class dependent on the state and which is also not affected so much by immigration, but is also internationalist in mindset.”
Luke Tryl, from pollsters More in Common, said one reason for their discontent with Labour was that “the working class have borne the brunt of the cost of living crisis. And also when public services are not working, the working class are more dependent on them.”
The YouGov polling analysis of a massive 17,000 UK voters taken over three weeks has shown that in households with an income of £20,000 or less, almost a third (32 per cent) now back Reform UK.
Labour trails 13 points behind Mr Farage’s party in the poorest category, on 19 per cent. But in the wealthiest category of households with £70,000 income or more, they lead with 31 per cent. This compares to 17 per cent for both the Tories and Reform among wealthier voters.
The findings come after Reform has deliberately pivoted to trying to pick up working-class voters by promising to end the two child benefit cap, restore winter fuel payments to pensions, give the lowest earners a pay rise with a £250,000 levy on non-doms and nationalise British Steel.
Yougov found that Labour defectors are less likely to have been educated to degree level, more likely to be classed as living in working-class households and are more likely to have voted to leave the EU.
Professor Sir John Curtice linked it to Reform being more popular with older voters.
He noted: “Reform voters are older; lots are retired, so have lower incomes. Also, they are less likely to be graduates and thus to be in well-paid middle-class employment.”
The analysis found Labour have a third (33 per cent) of all voters aged between 18 and 29, but Reform has more than a third of all voters aged over 50.
According to Yougov, the top reasons for voters abandoning Labour since the last election are “broken or not delivered promises” on 29 per cent. Other issues are “cost of living” 24 per cent, “too right wing” 22 per cent, “made no difference” 21 per cent, and high immigration 20 per cent.
The poll found that more than half of 2024 Labour voters who would now back Reform, 52 per cent, live in working-class households.
At last summer’s general election last July, 35 per cent of Labour supporters were in working-class households. Now, four in 10 (41 per cent) of those who would now support another party are working class.
Those who have switched to Reform cite high immigration (62 per cent) and broken promises 44 per cent as their top two reasons, while 48 per cent who went to the Greens cite “too right wing”.
Labour-to-Reform switchers are half as likely to hold a degree as those sticking with Labour, while around half (49 per cent) voted Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum, with a similar number (52 per cent) classed as C2DEs (working-class households). Three in 10 Labour to Reform UK switchers (31 per cent) voted Conservative in the 2019 election, compared to 7 per cent of those remaining loyal to Labour.
In an interview on Saturday, the Labour peer Maurice Glasman said recent election results were “more than a wake-up call, it’s an immense statement by working-class voters that they’ve lost trust in us. That can’t be argued with, it’s got to be engaged with.”
In the wake of the welfare row, the Labour peer Charlie Falconer, a former lord chancellor, also told the BBC’s Today programme that his party needed a “reset”.
The polling taken on 29 March and 8 June also revealed a surge in support from younger voters (18 to 26) to the Greens, with 26 per cent overall backing the party from that age group. Startlingly, 34 per cent of women aged 18 to 24 now support the Greens in a category which used to be strong for Labour.
But the polling has found that criticisms that Labour now targets students and the public sector as its core vote, above the traditional working class, appear to be justified by the findings.
