🚨Data Update 🚨
We have released an updated version of our panel data. This version includes a correction to our p_ethnicity variables, which affected 7.8% of our respondents. There is also a very small correction to our geographic variables.
More ⬇️
www.britishelectionstudy.com/uncategorize...
🚨Data Update 🚨
We are pleased to release an updated version of the 2024 BES Face-to-Face Post-Election Survey dataset (v1.0.1) that includes improved versions of two important survey weights (wt_demog and wt_vote) based on new estimates of the VEP.
www.britishelectionstudy.com/2024-general...
Featuring @britishelectionstudy.com data. And analysis by @martamiori.bsky.social, @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social and data story supported by me.
You can read our paper here: academic.oup.com/pa/advance-a...
You can read Marta and Jane's paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
You can read the working paper on the Islands of Strangers speech here: osf.io/preprints/so...
The Economist's piece also references work by @profjanegreen.bsky.social and @martamiori.bsky.social on tactical voting in 2024, and a paper that includes BES team member @jack-bailey.co.uk on Keir Starmer's "Island of Strangers" speech.
BES Research Fellow @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social has spoken with The Economist about our Parliamentary Affairs paper on how British voters are volatile, but their choices are now structured by party blocs after the Brexit realignment.
Read here: www.economist.com/britain/2025...
🚨DATA RELEASE 🚨
The BES team are pleased to announce the release of Wave 30 of the British Election Study Internet Panel.
Please follow the link below, and we look forward to seeing your research!
www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-resource...
Interested in Labour's lost voters since the 2024 UK GE?
Want to get a sneak peak at some of the results from wave 30 of the BESIP before it is released?
Then we have a new blog for you! 👇👇
The Brexit realignment is the essential starting point for understanding where Labour's vote is splintering. The largest group is still 'undecided': good news-ish for Labour, but potential for others too.
This shows how large Labour's first year losses are relative to recent comparable governments:
Labour's slump is significant.
Labour’s vote has splintered between indecision and other left-liberal parties, with its rightward shift yielding little gain.
Labour's main competition for their 2024 voters are other left-liberal parties. They have time to win them back, but a tough path to do it
Graph showing percentage of 2024 Labour voters who thought that Labour would do a good job on the economy, immigration, and the NHS before the election, and the percentage who thought that they have done a good job since. In short, Labour voters are disappointed on all three areas.
One of the big reasons that Labour is losing voters is economy insecurity: tinyurl.com/yywv2mbw
However, the problem for the Labour Party is that their 2024 voters are not convinced by their performance in office.
Four graphs showing vote intention among 2024 Labour voters by immigration preferences (top-left), defence spending (top-right), taxation preferences (bottom-left), and welfare spending support (bottom-right). In short, each graph shows that Labour has lost a greater number of voters who support a 'left-liberal' position, while also losing the very few 'right-conservative' voters that they had at a higher rate.
Labour's strategy since the election seems designed to appeal to right-conservative voters.
This strategy hasn't worked on its own terms because they have lost the (very few) right-wing voters that they had, while also losing (much) larger numbers of left-wing voters.
Graph showing how much different types of 2024 Labour voter like each of the major parties in Britain. We look at Labour voters who still support Labour in 2025, Labour voters who moved to indecision, and Labour voters who have moved to a left-liberal party. The biggest finding is that Labour to undecided voters like left-liberal parties like the Liberal Democrats, Greens, and Plaid Cymru a lot more than they like Reform or the Conservatives.
Labour also faces more direct competition from left-liberal parties for the voters that they've lost to indecision.
These Lab -> undecided voters like the Liberal Democrats, Greens, and Plaid Cymru a lot more than they like Reform UK and the Conservatives.
So, these party blocs matter.
Alluvial plot showing the flow of support from vote in the 2024 UK General Election to vote intention in 2025 Wave 30 of the British Election Study Internet Panel.
Labour's next biggest losses are to left-liberal parties (Liberal Democrats and Greens).
Reform's growth in support has mostly come from the Conservatives and non-voting (much less from Labour).
These reflect patterns of party-bloc voting that we saw in the 2024 UK GE: tinyurl.com/y5pv7thw
Alluvial plot showing the flow of support from vote in the 2024 UK General Election to vote intention in the 2025 Wave 30 of the BES Internet Panel.
Labour's support has splintered.
Over 1 in 5 of their 2024 voters are now undecided. Labour could win these back, but there is a risk.
The Conservatives lost a similar amount to indecision after the last 3 elections, and they won most back in 2017 and 2019 (but not 2024).
Graph showing the decline in support between a post-election wave and the subsequent wave of the British Election Study Internet Panel, measured by mean like/dislike ratings. The drop in the mean like/dislike ratings for Labour is much larger than that for the Conservatives in 2015, 2017, or 2019.
Labour's decline in support is remarkable.
Support for Labour has fallen more sharply after this election than it has for any other winning party covered by the BESIP (though the timings between waves are not identical).
🚨New Research 🚨
Ahead of the release of Wave 30 of the BES Internet Panel, the team has examined Labour's decline since the 2024 GE.
Labour's support has splintered into mostly indecision or left-liberal parties, but they've also lost their few right-wing voters.
🧵⬇️
tinyurl.com/3m62exph
🚨NEW DATA 🚨
The BES team are pleased to announce the release of the 2024 Random Probability Survey Release v1.0.0
You can download the data here: www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-object/...
You can find our release note here:
www.britishelectionstudy.com/uncategorize...
New publication by the @britishelectionstudy.com team!
@jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social has summarised the main findings in this thread, but you can also find the paper here: academic.oup.com/pa/advance-a...
This year's Scottish Election Study Annual Lecture, delivered by our outstanding colleague and @britishelectionstudy.com Co-Director @profjanegreen.bsky.social, will take place a week on Monday in Edinburgh! 👩🏼🏫
Details and sign up below 🔽
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scottish-e...
If you're interested in what the local elections mean for the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, or the Greens, then @profjanegreen.bsky.social has a new explainer for you!
You can read more about it here: tinyurl.com/2s48bbf4
Or you can watch here: youtu.be/T9pKpbECtKk?...
Happy to say the third in this series is now on YouTube and @itvx.com. More soon….
Are you interested in the local elections? Do you want to know more about what they mean for Reform UK?
If so, you should watch these explainers by
@profjanegreen.bsky.social
Tips for interpreting the locals: tinyurl.com/28jwpbub
What it means for Reform: tinyurl.com/2sxrzeva
We made some pithy explainers for you!
Please watch these short films:
Four tips for interpreting these local elections:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DSb...
Reform Revolution? Four hurdles Reform will still need to overcome:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6ZG...
Reform will make big gains on 1 May. But what will that *MEAN*?
Will it mean they're building momentum, or will these locals last fought in 2021 be mainly catching up with last year's GE?
Will locals and a potential by-election win mean Reform are on track for a big Westminster breakthrough?
With massive thanks to @martamiori.bsky.social, Rosalie Falla, Sadia Islam. A joy to work with. And all at @itvnews.bsky.social @itvnewspolitics.bsky.social for their support.
Data and analysis from @britishelectionstudy.com @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social @nprcoxford.bsky.social @jrf-uk.bsky.social
The British Election Study team are happy to announce the release of our results file, which compiles 2024 election results, census data, candidate information, and other contextual data by constituency in Britain.
You can download the results file here: www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-object/...
🚨New Data 🚨
The British Election Study team are happy to announce the release of the 2024 Expert Survey.
We have also released the Trend File, which includes data from the 2014-2024 expert surveys.
Thank you to those who completed the survey!
Find the data here: tinyurl.com/BES-Expert-2...
📣 Data update 📣
We have updated our Teaching Dataset to include our 2024 waves (26-29)
These datasets (wide/long) have a condensed number of variables, which are designed for use by teaching professionals.
Available here: www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-objects...
📢Data Update 📢
We have released an updated version of the British Election Study Internet Panel, alongside waves 20, 27, and 29 with some minor fixes. This includes rectifying a small labelling issue with our selfPriorities variables.
Find data here:
britishelectionstudy.com/data/