Is there a progressive majority in the UK? Like all the best television shows, let’s do a quick recap about the debate Peter Kellner and I have been having on the Prospect website.
Late last year Compass published Thin Ice: Why the UK’s progressive majority could stop Labour’s landslide melting away. We said that Labour’s July general election victory made it vulnerable in terms of both votes and a mandate for change. We argued the centre-left can win on progressive policies. Kellner questioned our methodology, and I largely defended it. Kellner then came back to question whether there was a progressive majority in this country as we claimed, and now I get to respond.
There is no dispute between us over the facts. Of the 12 elections since 1979 the (let’s put it in inverted commas for now) “progressive” vote was bigger than the “regressive” total in 11 cases, but Labour won only four of them. But the question Kellner asks is: how “progressive” actually is this voting bloc? Indeed, is it a bloc at all?
The honest answer is I don’t know, but then neither does Kellner. We can interpret every election and put our own spin on it. For instance, Kellner argues that in 2019, despite there being a “progressive” majority, because more people wanted Brexit done and favoured Boris Johnson over Jeremy Corbyn the overall election result was right. But what about views on the economy, or the NHS, or education, or housing, or anything else? We can’t just pick and choose some issues and decide whether the electorate got it right or not.
To be crystal clear, Compass is not assuming that people will transfer their vote this way or that, as if they can be simply moved around like pieces on a chess board by political generals. Thankfully, they have their own minds. The point we are making is that there is the potential for a progressive majority to be mobilised in this country. And that it won’t be mobilised by appeasing centre-right swing voters, media moguls or rich party donors. Instead, it could and should be carefully and painstakingly constructed through progressive arguments, messages and policies. And in doing so progressives can win not just office, but a mandate for meaningful change. All we are trying to do is point out the evidence that suggests this potential—the rest is up to us and any politicians who also want to realise it. So, what is the evidence for a progressive majority?
Let’s start with voting intention. In the polling Opinium conducted for Thin Ice, we asked the question, “Which, if any, party or parties would you most like to see your chosen party work with more?” The responses show pretty categorically that Labour voters switch overwhelmingly to Liberal Democrats and Greens, that Liberal Democrat voters switch to Labour and Greens, and that Green voters switch to Labour and Liberal Democrats. Meanwhile, Tory voters switch overwhelmingly to Reform, and Reform voters to the Tories.
Let me emphasise again, we’re not saying that this is some shortcut to permanent progressive power. It is to say that in terms of voting preferences there is a basis to construct a progressive majority. Just look at the huge surge in tactical voting at the last election, as people worked out for themselves who best to support to defeat the Tories. There is an appetite for cross-party support, but the parties themselves lack the courage to speak publicly to it. Voters are left with smoke-and-mirror signals about which seats parties are prioritising, or not. What might happen to our politics if this individual and negative hunt for the least bad option was turned into a collective and positive endorsement of parties and policies that could build a better society?
Kellner argues, however, that it’s not votes we should look at but attitudes. Well, let’s look at them. Using an academic tool (the Chapel Hill Expert Survey) that scores the political leanings of parties based on a 0-10 scale, where 0 = extreme left-wing and 10 = extreme right-wing, we can plot how the UK compares to a basket of other nations in terms of the average left-right split. The UK scores almost 60 per cent progressive, the highest of all nations in the survey, which includes Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Ireland and other comparable nations.
Yet we end up with the most right-wing governments and the most right-wing policies of all these countries. In part this is because our progressive parties refuse to work together and are scuppered by the first-past-the-post voting system, which overwhelmingly rewards right-leaning policies and parties.
So, let’s finish where Kellner and I agree. We need to make the shift to proportional representation, not because it will result in more progressive outcomes, though that will most likely be the case, but because it’s the right democratic thing to do. To be a progressive is to believe in the amazing potential of everyone, and we need a democratic system that unlocks this. The days of backing first-past-the-post because it delivers strong government have gone forever. We live in a multi-party reality that's being shoehorned into an old two-party system, and it is causing political chaos. The quicker Labour’s leadership accepts this, the better it will be for all of us. Not least the progressive majority that deserves a progressive government.
