As government ministers, MPs and staffers cram onto Avanti West Coast services out of Euston on Saturday, for Labour’s annual party conference, Best for Britain has just published a landmark new constituency-level megapoll as featured on ITV’s Peston. The findings make for a rude awakening, and need to be on the tip of every tongue in Liverpool this weekend.
How does 321 MPs sound, compared to just 90? Our brand new dataset resoundingly demonstrates that a manifesto commitment to rejoining the EU is the route to securing a Labour-led government at the next general election, and to sparing this country from the nightmare of a Farage-led one. Fail to do so, or settle for a halfway house measure like customs union or single market membership, and it’s curtains: existential wipeout for the party in Scotland and Wales, fewer than 100 MPs and our economy, democracy, and union’s future, in tatters.
The report details fresh survey data of more than 13,400 GB adults, carried out by YouGov, with a tactical voting methodology applied to reflect the political and human realities of an election period, and the conclusions are clear. From Cumbernauld to Cornwall, from Ceredigion to Costessey, include the promise that a Labour-led government pledges to restore the UK’s place at the heart of Europe in the next general election manifesto, and Labour can form a government again.
Exclude the pledge, and the map fades to turquoise. The breakneck speed at which British politics currently operates means our alternative, worst-case scenario was conducted under the assumption the headmasterly, and ultimately bitterly unpopular, Keir Starmer would lead Labour into the next election. Unsurprisingly, that scenario returned a number that should make party strategists’ hair turn white. Likelihood to vote Labour stood at just 18 per cent. Scotland and Wales were both looking at near-total wipeout. It’s last man standing, at the end of the zombie apocalypse movie. Yes, since Burnham’s entry into No10, the government and the PM’s own personal poll ratings have improved. But is that disaster-level scenario dead in the water? I’m afraid not.
In fact, the electorate has only become more pro-European, watching Canada with envy, all while the next UK EU summit date edges further away, mired in arguments about ‘Made in Europe’ policy. While all options beyond Starmer’s redlines presented in the polling boost the propensity to vote Labour, it’s only offering membership of the EU that drives sufficient numbers towards them to hold onto power.
Clearly, Labour, Green, Lib Dem, SNP and Plaid Cymru voters are miles ahead of politicians on Europe - and actively urging them to catch up. Announcing this policy would be pushing at an open door with this left bloc of voters who turned out for Labour in 2024 but who have since abandoned them. What’s more, ambitious EU policies, including membership, do not increase support for Reform UK and the Conservatives. Nor, as our analysis shows, does the option of “loosening ties” with Europe brings any of those “right bloc” voters towards Labour. What an EU membership offering does do is increase the chances of unseating Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who would decimate our rights by dragging us out of the ECHR, and her Brexit-backing, Liz-Truss-championing shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith.
The YouGov modelling shows that when Labour pledges EU membership in their next manifesto, their support soars to 37 per cent. As our report demonstrates, that vote share would be enough to safely shore up those 321 MPs and, in an optimistic scenario, puts another 93 seats within the very winnable reach of only 4 per cent between the top two parties. That strongly suggests another term for Burnham as prime minister.
But it’s not just the electoral dividend for Burnham on offer, it’s the economic one too. That manifesto commitment would take us one vital step closer to the staggering £92bn boost to our economy, at the very least, that would deliver ‘growth in every postcode’: in the towns, villages, northern cities and former manufacturing heartlands decimated by Brexit, neglected during Covid, and left behind by an economic consensus that changed the rules and reality around them. We know Burnham’s – rightful – passion for redistributive growth. This would be the economic piece of the puzzle that makes it not only possible, but genuinely game-changing.
In politics, complacency and hesitation are deadly. Labour’s change of leader does represent a unique opportunity, but what the PLP, all the way from the most grizzled, Blair-era veterans to the freshest-faced, 2024-intake, Gen Z backbenchers, has to understand – right down to their bone marrow – is that this really is it. There won’t be another go, or a third leader coming to save them. Now is not the time for a high-risk, high-reward strategy. This is belt and braces territory. It’s hammering in an extra nail and securing the furniture to the wall, just in case.
A commitment to the UK’s membership of the EU sets out the route to avoiding cataclysm. That’s why we ran the numbers, and are imploring the government to pay attention. Burnham knows he has one shot on goal, or it’s game over. Enter Prime Minister Nigel Farage. There’s no second attempt, no extra time, and no penalties.
The stakes simply could not be higher – and we’re all in the stands, holding our breath.
