As Starmer’s approval rating plummets, Farage is on the rise: Can Labour turn things around?
“We are in unchartered territory.”
Sir John Curtice understands polling like few others, but you do not have to be an expert to see the Labour government has had a rough start.
It’s been less than five months since Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide election victory and already two-thirds of Britons say they feel worse off.
That’s according to a new poll from Ipsos, the latest survey to assess public opinion of the new occupants of Downing Street.
And while the prime minister’s favourability rating plummets, Nigel Farage’s is on the rise.
Ipsos favorability towards politicians
“We have never previously had a government starting with quite as low a share of the vote Labour got in July,” Sir John tells Sky News, referring to the party’s 174-seat majority despite a modest vote share of just 33.7%
“It’s also difficult to find a government that has slipped as much in the polls as this government has so quickly.”
Labour are being made to pay for unpopular decisions such as the means testing of the winter fuel payment and PR nightmares like the freebies row.
While “the Conservative party is not that popular”, we are in a new world of multi-party politics where “people have plenty of options, Reform UK is gaining traction”, Sir John adds.
It’s an “unprecedented situation”, and against it Labour face two fundamental difficulties – a leader who “hasn’t got a particularly strong political antenna” and a party “that doesn’t do narrative”.
“Voters are looking for them to fix the country,” Sir John says.
“Inevitably, they can’t in a matter of three to four months but they don’t have a positive narrative to explain why they have done what they have done.
“Their only argument is the Tories hid things and it’s worse than we thought. That’s a debatable proposition.”
But how detrimental is bad polling early on, and is it possible to shift the dial once a perception sets in?
‘They have certainly got time’
According to Keiran Pedley, director of UK Politics at Ipsos, “there’s not a hard and fast rule”.
Two in five people feel worse off since Labour got elected.
He says: “If you look at past prime ministers, there are some that start at a certain level, and they fall gradually over time, and they lose an election or get replaced, like Rishi Sunak or Theresa May.
“But there are other examples where it’s not as linear – Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, David Cameron, their popularity ebbed and flowed.”
To some degree, this was all circumstantial. Thatcher was bolstered by the Falklands War, for example, while the perceived weaknesses of then Labour leader Ed Miliband helped Cameron bounce back from his austerity-hit approval ratings to win the 2015 election.
“These things are all relative to how competently the opposition are seen as well,” Mr Pedley says.
“Given Labour are not six months into what might be a five-year term they have certainly got time.”
‘Public is giving Labour a chance’
Indeed, some Labour insiders are not fazed by the polls, hoping the public will stick with them over time as they start to feel the benefits of the government’s longer-term pledges like growing the economy and investing in the NHS.
According to Luke Tryl, director of thinktank More in Common, there is evidence the public is giving them some grace on this front.
The polling might be grim, but in focus groups, he says people seem willing to “give them the benefit of the doubt”.
He said: “They will say ‘I am not that happy with what they have done so far, but I am willing to give them a chance’.”
That does not mean being complacent, however.
Mr Tryl says the next election is likely to come down to three metrics: Do people think the weekly shop is more affordable, can people get a GP appointment more easily, have the small boats stopped or at least reduced?
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Mr Tryl says Labour will want to start making some progress on those issues long before voters next go to the polls – perhaps even within a year – or else the mood against the party could “crystalise”.
“They could find themselves in a situation like Joe Biden, who actually had lots of popular policy but [by the election campaign], the mood had crystallised against him, it was too late.”
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‘Learn lessons from America’
James Matthewson, a Labour spokesman during the Jeremy Corbyn era, also urged Starmer to learn lessons from across the Atlantic.
He believes the prime minister “absolutely can turn things around”, but that requires “defining what a centre-left government should look like”.
“They cannot look like the same old establishment. They need to look sensible and moderate but at the same time show they are different.”
That’s not an easy task he admits, and one Starmer’s predecessor, Mr Corbyn, failed to pull off with his huge fiscal spending programme that was rejected at the 2019 election.
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With even less room for manoeuvre on public spending than then, Mr Matthewson says Labour need to define their values with policies that are bold and socially progressive – but don’t cost the earth.
“The private school tax policy is a clear example of this kind of thing,” he says. “Most people don’t send their kids to private schools, and most people like that. It’s a thing of values.”
Drug reform and democratic reform are other areas Labour could tap into to distinguish themselves from the Tories, he adds – warning Mr Farage will be “emboldened” by Donald Trump’s victory, and that poses a huge risk at the next UK election.
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100 days of Starmer
Their “core narrative”, he says, is “there is a left-wing establishment ruling the world”.
“It’s nonsense, but it’s the narrative that works. And the more you look like that, the more you’re trying to be responsible and fill the shoes of the previous government, the more you fall into that trap.”
Can Labour bounce back?
Of course, while Mr Biden had four years, Mr Starmer has five – so for now at least, time is indeed on his side.
As Sir John reminds us, there’s only really one event a leader cannot recover from – which Liz Truss knows all too well.
“If you preside over a market crisis, it’s game over – you are dead,” he says.
“Other than that, it’s delivery, delivery, delivery.”
The government has been temporarily blocked from concluding the Chagos Islands deal by a late-night High Court injunction.
Ministers had been expected to complete a deal that would have seen the UK hand over sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius in the coming hours.
But in an emergency injunction granted early on Thursday, brought against the Foreign Office, Mr Justice Goose allowed “interim relief” to Bertrice Pompe, who had previously taken steps to bring legal action over the deal.
Ms Pompe is a Chagossian woman who sees the deal as a betrayal of their rights.
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The order, granted at 2.25am, states the government may take “no conclusive or legally binding step to conclude its negotiations concerning the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Archipelago, to a foreign government or bind itself as to the particular terms of any such transfer”.
A hearing is taking place at the High Court this morning, with crowds gathered in support of the block.
The location of the Chagos Islands
The government insisted this morning the Chagos Islands deal is the “right thing” for the UK.
A spokesperson said: “We do not comment on ongoing legal cases. This deal is the right thing to protect the British people and our national security.”
It was expected that Sir Keir Starmer would attend a virtual ceremony today to formally hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, despite heavy criticism from the Conservatives and Reform UK.
The government has argued international legal rulings in favour of Mauritius mean this handover is necessary.
As part of the deal, the UK will lease back a military base on the archipelago for 99 years.
Robert Jenrick, the former justice secretary, told Sky News that the Chagos Islands deal is a “sell-out for British interests”.
He said: “You’re seeing British sovereign territory being given away to an ally of China and billions of pounds of British taxpayers money being spent for the privilege.
“So, if this group can force the government to think twice, then all power to them.”
With this injunction in place, Sir Keir can no longer legally complete the deal.
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Ms Pompe, who filed the application for interim relief, believes the British government is acting with disregard for the human rights of the Chagossian people.
She has argued completion of the deal would amount to a breach of the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.
Chagossians are the former residents of the Chagos Islands, who were removed from the islands, predominantly to Mauritius, between the mid-1960s and early-1970s.
Those born on the islands and their children hold British nationality, but subsequent generations born outside British territory have no entitlement to it.
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