Labour fourth in new poll and set for worst election in a century

Good morning. The Labour Party is imploding. Every week, Sir Keir Starmer is confronted with a new crisis, and yet some members of his party somehow remain optimistic. Despite David Lammy’s fumbling of the debacle surrounding the early release of prisoners, many looked to Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York as a beacon of hope to brighten a dark week. But, as I explain below, Mamdani’s success is hardly likely to be replicated in Britain. Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor Delusion is fatal in politics. The Labour Party’s crisis continues to build, and yet too many of its leading figures remain hopeful that the party could yet pull off some sort of stunning comeback. Politicians need a hefty dose of optimism bias to survive in high office on the best of days, but this level of derangement is off the charts. Yes, some of these Labour voices concede, Rachel Reeves’s breach of Labour’s manifesto commitments will probably finish her off. Yes, David Lammy performed abominably last week, proving yet further confirmation of his lack of ministerial ability. Yes, the public is looking with growing horror at the omnicrisis at home, not least the Islamist show of force in Birmingham, the mass stabbing on a train, the repeated release of prisoners from jail, the chaos at the BBC, and the relentless avalanche of bad news on every front. Yes, it’s a “bad look” (to use that hideous Westminster village phrase) that Sir Keir Starmer is obsessed with Cop and climate change at a time when the public is desperate for firm, competent action at home. But don’t worry, the Panglossian faction within Labour argues, for none of this truly matters. There are two factors that trump all of this, two remaining pathways to utopia, two reasons to believe that it’s still all to play for. The first is Zohran Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York City. Labour MPs spent the past few days congratulating themselves about his victory, despite Mamdani’s loathsome views and far-Left extremism, arguing to anybody who would listen that this shows that Right-wing populism can be defeated. The second is polling that suggests lots of Lib Dems and Green voters would switch back to Labour to stop a Reform victory. Labour commentators call this the “Macron strategy” - the French president was able to wheel out the “front républicain” to block Marine le Pen in 2022 and 2024 - but in reality they are simply referring to tactical voting, hardly a novel concept. Let’s take both of these arguments in turn. The American elections last week were indeed a blow to Donald Trump and the Republicans, but principally in Virginia and New Jersey. Although both are Democratic states, the former was controlled until last week by a Republican governor. In NYC, a Democratic city if ever there were one, Mamdani won with a much tighter margin than all of his recent City Hall predecessors. Many of his votes shifted instead to Andrew Cuomo who stood as an independent. The main issues hurting the Republicans outside NYC appeared to be the Government shutdown (in Virginia); the cost of living crisis and weakish job market (also driving voting in NYC); and some Hispanic and Asian voters worried about heavy-handed immigration enforcement, combined with disgusting statements from idiots on the fringes of the Maga movement. Trump and the Republicans need to be careful, and turn their attention to bread-and-butter issues, while expelling the nutters from their party. But the Democrats would have won much more easily in NYC had they plumped for a mainstream candidate, rather than a far-Left radical. Mamdani’s victory was not a “triumph against populism”: it was the Democrats turning inward and sacrificing swathes of their traditional electorate for ideological reasons. Mamdani would have been crushed anywhere in Trump territory, which NYC patently isn’t. The idea that what happened in the US has any bearing on Labour’s woes in the UK is absurd. First, Labour are the incumbents, so they will be blamed for the continuing cost of living crisis and the struggling British economy. Second, in Britain, unlike in the two-party US system, the far-Left is outside of the Labour party (in the form of the Corbynites, Independents and Greens) and will remain so even if Starmer is replaced by an even more socialist PM. This means that if the far-Left makes gains in the UK (as it surely will), it will be at the expense of Labour. This Government will never be Left-wing enough for the most crazed 15-20pc of the modern British electorate – and a lurch to the Left will alienate what remains of the rest of the country, even more so than with Corbyn in 2019. Last but not least, look at where Reform is doing well – does anybody actually believe that embracing a Mamdani-style candidate would help Labour in Essex, in Kent or in the Red Wall? The comparison with the US is absurd, an attempt by desperate Labour apparatchiks to convince themselves that they might yet be rescued from oblivion by an imaginary, uber-charismatic, young far-Left demagogue What of the second argument, which pins the party’s hopes on tactical voting? Here Labour is on slightly firmer territory, but the case is grossly exaggerated. Britain isn’t France: we don’t have a two-round system which effectively turns almost every constituency race and the presidential race into a highly tactical referendum. Reform doesn’t suffer from the Rassemblement National’s toxic history. Just like in 2024 with the Tories and Right-wing voters, many Left-wing voters are furious at Labour for its perceived betrayals and staggering incompetence. Many will vote to punish Starmer or whichever lacklustre figures follows him, regardless of consequences. Many Reform voters saw no difference between Tory and Labour policies; in the same way, many Green supporters consider Labour to be unpalatably Right-wing. This subsection of the electorate won’t engage in tactical voting. In many seats that Reform could grab, the key determinant will be what Tory voters do, not the behaviour of the Greens or Lib Dems. More broadly, tactical voting works both ways: if the polls remain roughly as now, and the choice is either a Reform led Right-wing government or a far-Left Labour-Green-SNP-Corbynite coalition, many Tory voters will switch to Nigel Farage, and some Reform supporters will plump for the Tories in winnable seats. The bottom line: tactical voting will be important, and much polling is too simplistic to take at face value. But it is hardly the slam dunk, almost magical solution, that some Labour officials appear to see it as. Reeves’s Budget bombshell will further cripple Labour’s reputation, making it clear to the electorate that things can only get worse. Ignore the Polyannish propaganda: Labour remains on course for a historic electoral mauling. Modelling by Find Out Now predicts Nigel Farage would enter No 10 if poll replicated at a general election Daily Telegraph 07/11/25 Link Labour has fallen to fourth in a new opinion poll, putting the party on track for its worst election result in more than a century.

Support for Sir Keir Starmer’s party in the poll of 2,717 adults has slumped to 15 per cent – behind Reform UK, the Greens and the Conservatives. It is the latest in a string of polls which have put Labour behind the Greens since Zack Polanski was elected leader of that party in September. Last week, the Greens overtook Labour for the first time in a survey by the same company, which placed it on 17 per cent, a point ahead of Sir Keir and Mrs Badenoch’s parties, which were tied on 16 per cent each. Reform UK would win 386 seats under the scenario, enough to give it an overall majority. Meanwhile, the Greens would win 55 seats in cities and university towns, including Emily Thornberry’s seat of Islington South and Finsbury and former transport secretary Louise Haigh’s Sheffield Heeley constituency. The Liberal Democrats would win 73 seats and become the official opposition to Mr Farage, while the SNP would win 46 seats. Labour would be relegated to the fourth-largest party in the Commons with just 25 seats, while the Conservatives would win just 17 seats in a total collapse for the traditional parties of government. The Greens’ Mr Polanski, a self-professed “eco-populist”, is a former hypnotherapist who claimed women could increase their breast size with their minds. He won the ballot of party members after seeing off a joint leadership bid from Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns. Earlier this week, he defended his party’s proposals for a wealth tax. Speaking on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Polanski said: “Whatever you’re going to create from a wealth tax, it’s ultimately about reducing inequality. “This isn’t about creating public investment. We can do that anyway, we don’t need to tax the wealthy to do that. This is ultimately about tackling the deep inequality in our society.”