More than a quarter of Londoners who backed Labour at the general election now say they regret how they voted, a new poll revealed on Friday.
The Savanta survey for the Mile End Institute at Queen Mary University of London found support for Labour in the capital had dropped “dramatically” since Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide victory on July 4.
However, the party still stands 12 percentage points of other parties in the city.
If there was a general election held tomorrow, 36 per cent of Londoners said they would vote Labour, compared to 24 per cent who said they would back the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats and Greens were on 12 per cent, while 13 per cent of Londoners said they would vote Reform UK.
This compares to the 22-percentage point lead Labour held over the Tories in the capital at the 2024 general election, where Sir Keir’s party won 43 per cent of the vote among Londoners compared to the Conservative’s 21 per cent.
Labour has been forced to make some difficult budget decisions since coming to power, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves claiming the previous Tory administration left a £22billion “blackhole” in Britain’s finances.
The survey found that almost a fifth (19 per cent) of Londoners who backed Labour on July 4 said they would vote for a different party if there was a general election tomorrow.
An equal portion of those survey said they would shift to other parties on the left of the political spectrum and to parties on the right.
More than a quarter (27 per cent) of Londoners who voted for Labour earlier this year said they regret their choice.
This figure stands at 14 per cent among Conservative voters and 21 per cent among all Londoners who voted in the 2024 general election.
This decline in Labour’s support is driven in part by concerns about the way the government is running the country, the Mile End Institute found.
Some 43 per cent of Londoners were dissatisfied about the way Britain is being run, compared to just 28 per cent who are satisfied.
But the city’s residents have a mixed view on how well Holborn and St Pancras MP Sir Keir is doing as Prime Minister.
A third said he is doing a good job and another third say he has been doing a bad job.
Dr Elizabeth Simon, Postdoctoral Researcher in British Politics at Queen Mary University of London, said: “The honeymoon period appears to be over for the Labour government.
“Our Mile End Institute polling not only shows that Labour’s lead over the Conservatives in the capital has declined dramatically, from 22 percentage points at the 2024 general election – which was held on July 4th – to just 12 percentage points in November 2024, but also that more than a quarter of Londoners who voted Labour at the 2024 general election regret how they voted.
“This drop in support for the Labour Party among Londoners appears to be driven, at least in part, by the fact that many of those living in the capital are dissatisfied with the way the new government have been running the country.”
Savanta surveyed 1,004 Londoners between October 30 and November 11. November 2024. Data was weighted to be representative of all adults in the capital by age, gender, ethnicity, region, socioeconomic status and the 2024 London Mayoral Election and General Election votes.
