Survation’s second Labour members’ poll in partnership with LabourList conducted immediately following Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement shows sharp declines in leadership favourability, strong opposition to welfare reforms, and growing concern about the threat from Reform UK ahead of this May’s local elections.

Favourability Falls for Cabinet Members

The most immediate political consequence of the Spring Statement is a sharp drop in the favourability of Labour’s top figures. Net favourability for the Chancellor has plummeted by 30 points to -41%, with seven in ten Labour members now holding an unfavourable view of Reeves.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s net favourability has also dipped significantly – down 26 points to -13% – pushing him into negative territory alongside both Reeves and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall. Across the Cabinet, the average decline in net favourability stands at -13 points, with all cabinet members systematically dropping in support among party members. 

From Policy to Perception

These personal ratings are mirrored by a deepening crisis of confidence in the party’s direction. Two-thirds of Labour members (68%) now say the party is heading in the wrong direction – up from 49% in our last poll just a fortnight ago. The proportion who think the party is on the right track has fallen to just 24%, indicating that the membership has tipped into broad-based discontent.

This appears to be driven by two forces: the perceived breakdown of communication and disappointment with specific policies.

First, concerns about messaging have grown significantly. More than four in five members (82%) now believe the party is failing to communicate effectively with the public – up 9 points since our last poll, indicating a perception among its core base that the party is increasingly out of touch with how its actions are landing with voters. This echoes a wider tension we explored in our recent blog on communicating growth: while ministers speak in terms of growth and fiscal discipline, the public understands the economy through prices, wages and interest rates. Labour members appear to share this concern – and increasingly fear the gap is growing, not narrowing.

Second, there is evident disapproval of the policy content itself. Nearly two-thirds (64%) said the Spring Statement was worse than expected, while only 30% found it better than anticipated. A majority (52%) rated the overall package negatively. The proposed changes to welfare, the freeze in health-related Universal Credit payments, and the reprioritisation of spending towards defence and away from overseas aid and departmental budgets appear to have crystallised deeper anxieties about the direction of Labour in government. The party’s leadership now faces not only falling favourability but a growing sense among its own base that it is pursuing the wrong course, and failing to explain why.

Unpopular Policies, Limited Support, and Electoral Risk

The Chancellor’s Spring Statement appears to have landed poorly with Labour’s membership, both in terms of its policy content and anticipated political impact. Welfare reforms, particularly cuts and freezes to health-related Universal Credit payments and tighter Personal Independence Payment (PIP) eligibility, are a central source of discontent – four in five members (80%) believe the proposed welfare changes will harm Labour’s electoral chances, and 81% expect the Spring Statement overall to reduce the party’s support with the public. This likely goes beyond a moral or ideological opposition but instead reflects a strong belief with the party’s core membership that the policy mix is politically damaging.

Our findings suggest the Statement failed to build a positive policy narrative that resonated with members. The most popular proposal was a crackdown on tax evasion, backed by 37% of members. Other measures, such as increased capital spending (19%) and guaranteed personalised employment support (11%), received modest approval, but not enough to offset the broader dissatisfaction.

Crucially, there is a visible misalignment between the government’s fiscal priorities and what members see as acceptable. Just 11% supported an increase in defence spending, while nearly a quarter (23%) said that defence should instead be an area for savings. When asked what areas should be protected from future cuts, members overwhelmingly prioritised the NHS (30%), working-age and child benefits (14%), and local government funding (10%). By contrast, only 4% endorsed cuts to welfare for working people and children.

This dissonance has both strategic and symbolic implications. Labour members do not appear to see the measures announced in the Spring Statement as a necessary trade-off in difficult fiscal circumstances, but perhaps as a political misstep instead. At a time when the leadership is seeking to reassure markets and maintain its commitment to fiscal rules, it risks losing the trust of a base that expected a different kind of government. The Spring Statement which intended to demonstrate fiscal responsibility and long-term economic planning, has instead fuelled a perception that the party is failing to deliver on the values it campaigned on – and doing so at the cost of public support.

Members Anticipate Heavy Losses in the Local Elections

Looking ahead to the 1st May local elections which will take place in exactly four weeks, Labour members are markedly pessimistic about the party’s immediate electoral prospects. A majority (59%) expect the party to lose a significant number of council seats, and pluralities anticipate defeat in all four key mayoral contests polled. Reform UK is seen as the likely victor in Hull and East Yorkshire (26%) and Greater Lincolnshire (35%), while members expect the Conservatives to edge Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (16%) and the Liberal Democrats to take the West of England (19%) – a striking projection given they came distant fourth in 2021.

These expectations are not simply expressions of nerves – they reflect a growing sense that the party is drifting into avoidable political danger. Members’ assessments suggest that Labour is no longer clearly ahead in areas it needs to hold or win to consolidate its post-2024 position. Moreover, they point to a resurgence of parties on both flanks: Reform capitalising on disaffection in core Labour areas, and the Liberal Democrats and Greens gaining in places where ‘progressive’ voters may feel squeezed or disillusioned.

The upcoming Runcorn and Helsby by-election which will take place alongside the local elections offers a sharper illustration of these anxieties. Despite Labour’s 34.8% majority in the seat at the 2024 General Election, just 23% of members expect the party to retain it, while a majority (53%) believe Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin will win, underscoring a belief among members that recent policy choices, particularly on welfare, have made the party vulnerable in precisely the areas it needs to hold to avoid fragmentation of its coalition. While by-elections often serve as low-stakes opportunities for voters to express dissatisfaction with incumbents, and may not be perfectly representative of national sentiment, they can nonetheless act as a useful barometer of discontent. Should this seat fall, it will likely be seen by members and the leadership as a warning that public disappointment is deeper than expected.

What emerges from these expectations is a membership that no longer assumes electoral advantage – even in former strongholds. The concern is not just about turnout or media cycles; it reflects a strategic anxiety that the current policy agenda is weakening Labour’s appeal across the country. In this sense, the local elections are not just a test of strength but as a potential early warning sign.

What Next for the Party?

Taken together, these results reveal a membership that feels politically vulnerable, ideologically uneasy, and increasingly disconnected from the leadership’s agenda. Members are not only concerned about communication failures but also believe the party is pursuing the wrong priorities. Our previous polling on economic communication shows why this matters: the public does not primarily interpret economic competence through abstract metrics like GDP or fiscal balance. Instead, inflation, interest rates and wages are the reference points for most voters, and less than one in five people use “growth” to assess economic performance.

This disconnect poses a strategic challenge. Most Labour members believe the public will not reward the party for delivering on elite economic indicators if the material reality of everyday life does not improve.

Three-quarters (76%) of members now believe that the Chancellor should loosen fiscal rules, suggesting a strong desire for a more expansive approach. If there is a clear area of consensus among Labour members, it is on taxation. Nearly nine in ten (89%) support the introduction of a new wealth tax, and 84% want to see capital gains tax aligned with income tax rates. These findings reflect strong appetite within the membership for redistribution and further action on economic inequality – an area which many see as central to Labour’s purpose in government.

This year’s local elections will provide an early test of whether the leadership’s current economic strategy can hold its broad electoral coalition together – or whether the pessimism of its members reflects reality.

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Get the data

Survation conducted a poll of 1,053 Labour party members via LabourList’s database between 26th March and 1st April 2025. Tables are available here.

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