Political narratives and British voters

“Using new survey data, Laurence Vardaxoglou identifies two new groups of British voters, beyond left and right, according to their preferred political narratives. Winning the voters of each group will require different approaches from political Parties. Enjoying this post? Then sign up to our newsletter and receive a weekly roundup of all our articles. Politicians and political institutions use narratives to shape how citizens understand sociopolitical reality, in order to persuade them and gather support. It is a form of soft power that has come to the fore in recent years . Indeed, the Princeton historian Julian Zelizer told the New York Times that: “one of the biggest presidential powers that [President] Trump has deployed is the ability to shape his own narrative – we have seen repeatedly how [he] creates his own reality to legitimate his actions.” Political narratives have become central to the public debate in the UK too. Keir Starmer has been repeatedly criticised for lacking a compelling vision. The strong performance in the polls by Reform UK and the Green Party is widely attributed to their having a clear narrative. And yet we know surprisingly little about what the British public thinks of the party-political narratives on offer today. Using new survey data, in a joint project with Lily Savey at the Paris School of Economics, we identify four distinct groups of voters according to their narrative preferences. Our main finding is that there are two sizeable groups, together representing 64 per cent of the electorate, in the space between the left- and right-wing blocs. The “Tough Crowd” reject every political narrative. The “Open Minds” agree with all of them. Given that neither group is strongly considering voting for any party in particular, they represent a potential opportunity for strategists across the political spectrum. But winning them over will require different approaches. Methodology for identifying support for key political narratives To address the gap in our understanding of public attitudes towards party narratives, we conducted an online survey among a representative sample of 1,000 UK adults. Respondents were asked to rate their agreement with five anonymised political narratives – each based on the transcript from a party leader’s 2025 conference speech but presented with no reference to the corresponding party or leader – on a scale from 1 to 10. Each narrative was structured according to the four elements of the Narrative Policy Framework : setting, characters, plot, and call to action. For example, the Labour Party narrative, drawn from Keir Starmer’s Liverpool conference speech reads as follows: “Britain stands a fork in the road. It can choose the path of decline. It creates division between people, puts working people down, and promises quick fixes that won’t deliver. Instead, Britain can choose the path of renewal. It means growing the economy from the grassroots, protecting working people from injustice, and respecting people’s different life choices. Britain faces a fight for its soul. Rather than grievance or empty promises, government and working people working together as partners can achieve national renewal.” The four voter groups and their narrative preferences In the entire sample, no single narrative stands out, as illustrated in Figure 1. The Conservative narrative attracts the highest level of agreement (41 per cent), closely followed by Labour (40 per cent) and the Lib Dems (39 per cent), with Reform (37 per cent) and the Greens (35 per cent) slightly behind. The tightly contested narrative landscape reflects the newly fragmented party support in British politics since the 2024 general election. Figure 1: Agreement with party narratives in the entire sample But we identified four very distinct groups of British voters according to their narrative preferences, using cluster analysis applied to survey respondents’ agreement scores across the five party narratives. The results are shown in Figure 2 below. Figure 2: Agreement with party narratives by voter group The “Left-wing” and “Right-wing” groups and their narrative support The “Left-wing” group (19 per cent of the electorate) strongly agree with the Green (84 per cent), the Lib Dems (80 per cent), and Labour (71 per cent) narratives. A majority (73 per cent) of this group voted for one of these three parties at the 2024 general election. And when asked to locate themselves on a scale from left to right, 63 per cent placed themselves on the left. Making up 17 per cent of the electorate, the “Right-wing” group overwhelmingly agree with the Conservative (96 per cent) and Reform narratives (92 per cent), and 64 per cent voted for one of those two parties at the last election. Their self-placement on the left-right scale is split between the centre (45 per cent) and the right (47 per cent), which may explain their majority support for the Labour narrative at 57 per cent. The “Tough Crowd” and “Open Minds” groups have no narrative preferences The “Tough Crowd” group (32 per cent of the electorate) display consistently low support for all political narratives, agreement varying from 18 per cent to 25 per cent. They combine centrist political leaning with a disregard for the politics in general. 58 per cent of respondents place themselves in the centre of the left-right scale, and nearly half of them (49 per cent) are not interested in politics. In contrast, the “Open Minds” group (also 32 per cent of the electorate) are consistently in strong agreement with all five political narratives. Their agreement scores ranging from 86 per cent and 93 per cent. 48 per cent place themselves at the centre of the left-right scale, with the remainder evenly split across the left and right. The group is thus equally open to all political narratives, identifying broadly as centrists. An alternative reading of the political landscape in the UK The “Left-wing” and “Right-wing” groups in our study support narratives that align with their political preferences. They appear to reflect the “new consensus” that Ben Ansell suggests has emerged in British politics: there is a left-wing “bloc” including Labour, the Greens, and the Lib Dems, and a right-wing “bloc” made up of the Conservatives and Reform UK. Tim Bale provides further evidence that the public is becoming ever more polarised according to the two blocs. And yet we identify two broadly centrist groups that make up 62 per cent of the electorate. To some extent, they reflect two of The National Centre for Social Research’s (NatCen) six voter types identified ahead of the 2024 election : the “Apolitical Centrists” and the ‘Middle Britons’ (together 43 per cent of voters). The “Tough Crowd” and “Open Minds” might also occupy the space between the “Somewheres” and “Anywheres” introduced by David Goodhart in 2017. A space that Goodhart has recently acknowledged is home to a large “Inbetweener” group . The “Tough Crowd” in particular appears to share similarities with the “Left Behind” voters “united by a general sense of insecurity, pessimism and marginalization”. Although the researchers who coined the phrase in 2014, Rob Ford and Matt Goodwin, suggested that they are voters “only UKIP understands”. And the voters that we identify in the “Tough Crowd” do not enjoy an affinity with the right-wing populist party of the day, Reform UK. Figure 3 shows that whilst the “Left-wing” and “Right-wing” groups express predictable voting consideration at the next UK general election, the two remaining groups are broadly indifferent between parties. The “Tough Crowd” displays consistently low voting consideration, from 28 per cent for the Greens to 36 per cent for the Lib Dems and the Tories. The “Open Minds” consider all parties around 40 per cent apart from Reform slightly ahead on 49 per cent. Figure 3: Voting consideration at the next general election by voter group For political strategists of all parties then, the two groups that we identify represent a significant opportunity. But different strategies will be required to win them over. The “Tough Crowd” is disengaged from politics but crucially not inspired by populist narratives; it will require messaging that sparks a new interest in political and societal issues. The “Open Minds” are engaged and open to all: parties need to find ways to really set themselves apart from the competition rather than simply win agreement. Enjoyed this post? Sign up to our newsletter and receive a weekly roundup of all our articles. All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Image credit: brushpiquetr on Shutterstock The post Political narratives and British voters first appeared on LSE British Politics .

Summary generated from the RSS feed of LSE British Politics and Policy. All article rights belong to the original publisher. Click through to read the full piece on blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy.