As of July 2025, the political party that 18 to 24 year-old's in Great Britain would be most likely to vote for was the Labour Party, at 33 percent, with Labour also the most popular party among those aged 25 to 49. Reform UK was the most popular party for the 50 to 64 age group, with 29 percent of voters saying they would vote for them. For the oldest age group, the Reform was also the most popular, with 35 percent of over 65s intending to vote for them. Reform surge in the polls Since winning the last UK general election in July 2024, the ruling Labour Party have steadily become more unpopular among voters. After winning 33.7 percent of the vote in that election, the party was polling at 24 percent in April 2025, only slightly ahead of Reform UK on 23 percent. A right-wing populist party, Reform benefited from the collapse in support for the center-right Conservative Party in the last election, winning several seats at their expense. While the next UK general election is not due to be held until 2029, the government will be keen to address their collapsing approval ratings, in the face of Reform's rising support. Economic headaches for Labour in 2025 Although Labour inherited a growing economy, with falling inflation, and low unemployment from the Conservatives, the overall economic outlook for the UK is still quite gloomy. The country's government debt is around 100 percent of GDP, and without large tax rises and spending cuts, the government hopes to create a stronger, more resilient economy to reduce the deficit. While this is still a possibility, the UK's economic prospects for 2025 were recently slashed, with growth of one percent forecast, down from an earlier prediction of two percent. Although mainly due to external factors such as the threat of increasing tariffs, and general geopolitical instability, the UK's faltering economy will add further problems to the embattled government.
As of July 2025, approximately 24 percent of people in the UK would vote for the governing Labour Party in a potential general election, behind Reform UK on 26 percent, with the Conservatives third on 16 percent. Since returning to power, support for the Labour Party has fallen considerably, with the government's sinking approval rating approaching the unpopularity of the previous government. Labour's return to power in 2024 On May 22, 2024, Rishi Sunak announced his decision to hold the 2024 general election on July 4. Sunak's surprise announcement came shortly after some positive economic figures were released in the UK, and he may have hoped this would boost his poor job ratings and perhaps also his government's low approval ratings. This was a long-shot, however, and as predicted in the polls, Labour won the 2024 general election by a landslide, winning 412 out of 650 seats. The sting in the tale for the Labour Party was that despite this large majority, they won a relatively low share of the votes and almost immediately saw their popularity fall in the second half of 2024. Sunak's five pledges in 2023 After a tough 2022, in which Britain suffered through its worst cost of living crisis in a generation, the economy was consistently identified as the main issue facing the country, just ahead of healthcare. To respond to these concerns, Rishi Sunak started 2023 with five pledges; halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce national debt, cut NHS waiting times, and stop small boats. By the end of that year, just one pledge can be said to have been fully realized, with CPI inflation falling from 10.1 percent at the start of 2023 to 4 percent by the end of it. There is some ambiguity regarding the success of some of the other pledges. The economy shrank in the last two quarters of 2023 but started to grow again in early 2024. National debt increased slightly, while small boat arrivals declined compared to 2022, but were still higher than in most other years. The pledge to cut NHS waiting times was not fulfilled either, with the number of people awaiting treatment rising in 2023.
According to a survey on how different regions of Great Britain would vote in a potential election, the ruling Labour Party were most popular in London, where 38 percent of voters would vote for them. Among Scottish respondents, 31 percent advised they would vote for the Scottish National Party, while 23 percent of people in Wales would vote for Plaid Cymru. Reform UK were the most popular party in the Midlands.
According to recent polls regarding voting intention in the UK, 27 percent of men and 19 percent of women intended to vote for Reform UK, compared with 24 percent of men, and a 23 percent of women who would vote for the Labour Party.
In the upcoming United Kingdom General Election, 41 percent of people over the age of 65 advised that they intend to vote for the Conservative Party, compared with just 17 percent of those aged between 18 to 34. By contrast, the Labour Party has more potential voters in the youngest age brackets, with over two thirds of 35-44 year olds backing them.
In July 2025, approximately 32 percent of people in London would vote for the governing Labour Party in a potential general election, with the Greens the second-most popular party at 18 percent.
As of June 2024, approximately 30 percent of people in Scotland would vote for the Scottish National Party (SNP) in a UK general election, while 34 percent would vote for the Labour Party.
This statistic presents the voting intention of adults in the United Kingdom, for the European Elections due to take place on May 23, 2019. The recently formed Brexit Party had the highest share of adults intending to vote for them at 37 percent, with the governing Conservative Party trailing in fifth at just seven percent.
This statistic shows the voting intention of the Great British public for the 2015 general election as of May 6,2015. On the final day of the campaign, the conservatives and Labour were neck and neck. Meanwhile UKIP looked to be on their way to becoming the 'third party' in the United Kingdom with a three point lead on the Liberal Democrats.
According to a poll of people who have not decided how they will vote in the next UK general election set for July 4, 2024, 24 percent were leaning towards not voting at all. A further 20 percent indicated they were leaning towards voting for the Labour Party, with another 20 percent leaning towards the Conservatives.
This graph shows the voting intention of the British public from January to June 2016 for the forthcoming referendum on EU membership. Over the first three surveys detailed here, 'leave' was the most common response, from February 25 until April 6th the "remain" opinion has become prominent. As of May 24th the remain vote stabilized at 41 percent, before rising to 42 percent on June 10th, at this time the leave vote began to take prominence although as of June 19 there was a two point lead for the leave vote. On the day before the EU referendum both parties were tied at 45 percent.
This dataset contains a spreadsheet with the participant's alias together with some political and socio-demographic data and the anonymised pre-election transcripts. There are twenty-four transcripts in the dataset, one set are in Word and the other in OpenDocument Text. Files are named according to who participated in the focus group or interview. Each transcript contains a table with some basic sociodemographic and political data on the participants.
Participants participated in an icebreaker and were asked their opinions on the snap election, the party leaders, what considerations were going into their vote choice, and impressions of the campaign. If there was time or it was not discussed, they were asked which campaign messages stood out to them and their views on tactical voting.
All participants’ names were changed to a permanent alias that allows them to be tracked across elections and any direct or indirect identifiers removed to protect their anonymity. The transcripts were then formatted to create two levels of headings: topics and aliases. This is designed to help researchers more easily find the information they need. Please be aware that while topic headings have been added to the transcripts, participants sometimes provide information that anticipates later questions or provide additional information to a prior question later in the in discussion. If you are interested in a particular topic, we encourage to review the entire transcript to capture all the relevant data.
The post-election dataset and leader’s evaluation answers data will be released in 2025.
The Qualitative Election Study of Britain (QESB) is a longitudinal qualitative dataset documenting the real-world discourse of ordinary people, with rich data on their politics, over multiple elections and referendums. The QESB dataset consists of a series of longitudinal transcripts (in Word and Open Office Documents) covering multiple elections and referendums, with over 1.1 million words from 252 and participants to date. The data, structured by election year and pre and post election topics (e.g., impressions of the campaign, impressions of the party leaders, stories of their vote choice and election day), includes comprehensive socio demographic information (e.g. age, gender, regional location) and political indicators (e.g party affiliation, vote choice, including whether and how they voted in the EU referendum).
QESB has a core set of questions that have been asked at each election since 2010, including the pre-election topics such as perceptions of the campaigns, perceptions of the party leaders, most important issues, and the post-election topics of voluntary self-reported vote choice, recounting the story of their election day, and perceptions of the new government to allow researchers to identify topics of interest across time.
In June and July 2024, seventy-six eligible voters took part in pre-election online and in-person focus groups for the 2024 UK General Election. The Qualitative Election Study of Britain seeks to capture the complexities of why people vote the way they do by recording people talk about politics in their own words. Founded in 2010, it is the world’s longest running qualitative election study, providing researchers with a unique data resource for thematic, content, narrative and discourse analysis.
This dataset contains a spreadsheet with the participant's alias together with some political and socio-demographic data and the anonymised pre-election transcripts. There are twenty-four transcripts in the dataset. Files are named according to who participated in the focus group or interview. Participants were asked their opinions on the snap election, the party leaders, what considerations were going into their vote choice, and impressions of the campaign. The post-election dataset and leader’s evaluation answers data will be released in 2025.
As of May 2025, 36 percent of people in Great Britain thought that Keir Starmer was better for the job of Prime Minister than the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, with 25 percent believing she would be better for the job. Although Starmer is currently seen as better suited for the job as Prime Minister, the approval ratings for his government have declined considerably since winning the election, sinking to a low of -54 percent in March 2025. Sunak vs Starmer Shortly after succeeding Truss as Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak was seen by 30 percent of people as the best person for the job, just four percentage points behind Keir Starmer. Twenty months later, however, on the eve of the 2024 general election, just 19 percent of people thought Sunak was the best choice, compared with 35 percent for Starmer. Despite pledging to address the main issues facing the country at the start of 2023, Sunak struggled to convince voters. Although inflation peaked in 2022, and declined throughout 2023, the cost of living crisis afflicting people in the UK lingered on, while progress on improving the NHS proved elusive. The Conservatives suffered a clear defeat in the 2024 election, winning just 121 seats, compared with 365 in 2019. Scandals and mini budgets After becoming Prime Minister in late 2019, a series of controversies harmed the popularity of Boris Johnson among voters, and eventually forced his resignation. The Partygate scandal, which revealed that senior government officials held parties at Downing Street, during the COVID-19 lockdown, was the most severe. When the issue came to a head in Summer 2022, Johnson survived the initial political backlash, including an attempted vote of no-confidence in his leadership, but he was forced to resign his position after a wave of senior ministers resigned from his government between July 5-7, 2022. Although Liz Truss won the leadership contest that followed the resignation of Johnson, her time in office was by far the shortest of any Prime Minister. After an unorthodox mini-budget resulted in an acute economic crisis, she resigned her position after less than 50 days in the job
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/3974/termshttps://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/3974/terms
This research project explored when governments call elections and how the timing of elections influences the electoral result. In many parliamentary systems, the timing of the next election is at the discretion of the current government. Rather than waiting for the end of their term, leaders are free to call elections when it is advantageous to them and when they expect to win. This project was designed to use game theory to model how leaders decide whether to call elections based on their expectations about future performance. The data collected for this study reflect the timing of the British General Elections. In particular, this study addressed five research questions: (1) When are elections called? (2) What are the electoral implications of the timing of an election? (3) How are election timing and subsequent post-electoral economic performance related? (4) How does the election timing affect the length of the campaign? and (5) How does the London stock market respond to the announcement of elections? The data cover the time span from 1900 to 2001, although most of the files focus on the period from August 1, 1945, to June 13, 2001. Part 1 (Dates of Key Political Events Data) contains the dates of key political events, such as elections, first meetings of parliament, dissolutions, announcements of an election, by-elections, shifts in party allegiances, confidence votes, or changes in Prime Minister. Additional variables in Part 1 include whether there is a minority government or coalition government, percentage share of the vote by party type, number of seats by party type, and election turnout. Part 2 (By-Elections Data) includes the change in seats as a result of by-elections. Variables include the date of the by-election, electoral district, and change in seats by political parties. Part 3 (Change in Party Allegiance Data) contains information about the date of the allegiance shift, the electoral district, and defections to and from various political parties. Part 4 (Public Opinion Data) includes Gallup public opinion data on voting intentions, approval of government record, and approval of Prime Minister and opposition leader. Part 5 (Basic Economic Variables) contains basic economic data for the United Kingdom, such as various measures of gross domestic product and change in retail price index. Part 6 (Monthly Inflation Data) contains monthly inflation data as measured by the percentage change in retail price index. Part 7 (Unemployment Data) consists of monthly, quarterly, and yearly unemployment data. Part 8 (Stock Market Data) includes data on the United Kingdom market index, United States Dow Jones industrial average, Standard and Poors' composite index, the Financial Times 500 stock index, and Datastream's measure of British funds on the London Exchange. Part 9 (Financial Times 30 Share Index Data) contains the Financial Times 30 close and the volume of bargains. Lastly, Part 10 (Newspaper Stories Data) consists of counts of newspaper stories relating to the next general election.
Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
This statistic shows the distribution of UKIP supporters in Great Britain in January 2014, by party voted for in the UK 2010 general election. The greatest share of those supporting UKIP, at time of survey, voted for the Conservative party in 2010. Other parties which appear to have lost substantial support to UKIP are the Liberal Democrats and Labour.
Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The Audit of Political Engagement is a time-series study providing an annual benchmark to measure political engagement in Great Britain, gauging public opinion about politics and the political system, and more broadly the general health of our democracy. Each Audit report presents the findings from a public opinion survey, providing detailed commentary on a range of measures that have been chosen as key measures of political engagement. Repeating questions in successive years enables us to chronicle the public’s responses year on year and track the direction and magnitude of change since the Audit was first published in 2004, building trend data on public attitudes to key aspects of our democracy.As of March 2025, 54 percent of adults in Scotland said they would not support Scotland being independent from the United Kingdom, compared with 46 percent who would support it. Support for Scottish independence reached 53 percent in August 2020, the highest level of support for independence in the provided time period. The highest opposition to independence was in January 2018, when 57 percent of people in Scotland advised they would vote no in a hypothetical referendum. Independence rejected in the 2014 referendum The last referendum on Scottish independence took place in September 2014, with 55 percent of Scotland voting 'No' to independence, compared to 45.5 percent who voted 'Yes'. An optimistic 'Yes' campaign was led by Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) at the time; who had overseen his party increase their vote share in Westminster and achieve an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament in 2011. The following year, the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, granted the Scottish Parliament the authority to hold the independence referendum, which would be held in 2014. Cameron, and various other UK politicians such as Gordon Brown, led the ultimately successful 'No' campaign, painting independence as too much of an economic risk for Scotland. Scotland and Brexit In the aftermath of the referendum, Alex Salmond resigned as First Minister of Scotland. Although he was on the winning side of the Scottish independence referendum, David Cameron’s would share Salmond’s fate less than two years later when he campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU and end up on the losing side of the Brexit referendum. For Scotland, Brexit gave renewed impetus to the question of Scottish independence. Except for London, all regions of England, along with Wales had voted to take the UK out of Europe, while Scotland, along with Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU. While this represented a significant change in Scotland’s relationship with the rest of the UK, advocates for Scottish independence have been unable to obtain consent from Westminster to hold a second referendum.
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A condensed version of the British Election Study Internet Panel W1-W25, intended for use as a teaching aid. The full internet panel asks around 30,000 respondents per wave a series of items that relate to their voting behaviour, political attitudes and behaviour, and socio-demographics. Respondents are collected from across Great Britain, including sizeable samples from England, Scotland, and Wales. The teaching dataset is created by taking a limited set of variables directly from the full internet panel file, and it is available in both wide and long format.
As of July 2025, the political party that 18 to 24 year-old's in Great Britain would be most likely to vote for was the Labour Party, at 33 percent, with Labour also the most popular party among those aged 25 to 49. Reform UK was the most popular party for the 50 to 64 age group, with 29 percent of voters saying they would vote for them. For the oldest age group, the Reform was also the most popular, with 35 percent of over 65s intending to vote for them. Reform surge in the polls Since winning the last UK general election in July 2024, the ruling Labour Party have steadily become more unpopular among voters. After winning 33.7 percent of the vote in that election, the party was polling at 24 percent in April 2025, only slightly ahead of Reform UK on 23 percent. A right-wing populist party, Reform benefited from the collapse in support for the center-right Conservative Party in the last election, winning several seats at their expense. While the next UK general election is not due to be held until 2029, the government will be keen to address their collapsing approval ratings, in the face of Reform's rising support. Economic headaches for Labour in 2025 Although Labour inherited a growing economy, with falling inflation, and low unemployment from the Conservatives, the overall economic outlook for the UK is still quite gloomy. The country's government debt is around 100 percent of GDP, and without large tax rises and spending cuts, the government hopes to create a stronger, more resilient economy to reduce the deficit. While this is still a possibility, the UK's economic prospects for 2025 were recently slashed, with growth of one percent forecast, down from an earlier prediction of two percent. Although mainly due to external factors such as the threat of increasing tariffs, and general geopolitical instability, the UK's faltering economy will add further problems to the embattled government.