Unrealistic and unapproachable: public opinion on the Labour and Labour 2024 manifestos

Most Britons believe parties are backtracking on their programme promises anyway

The public now has a few weeks to digest the parties’ manifestos. YouGov has already shown the level of support for individual manifesto policies, but what do people think of the manifestos more broadly?

Britons often believe that Tory and Labour election promises are unattainable and unrealistic

The IFS criticized the Labor Party and the Conservative Party for failing to show how they would pay for their election promises.

The public has similar suspicions. A majority of Britons believe the Tory campaign promises are unachievable (57%), while around half think the same about Labour (47%). Similar figures again describe both parties’ plans as “unrealistic”: 62% for the Conservatives and 47% for Labour.

As well as calling the Tory proposals unrealistic and unviable, the public also believes they would be bad for the UK (52%) – only 22% think they would be good for the country.

In contrast, they are divided on Labour’s plans: 37% think they would be good for the nation, while 35% think they would not.

How does the opinion compare to previous elections?

In their book on the 2017 general election, academics Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh noted that “few election manifestos are remembered. Even a smaller number makes a big difference. The 2017 general election seemed to be an exception to this rule. The Conservatives’ welfare policies performed exceptionally poorly, which resulted in a shift in the media narrative against the party and a sharp decline in their popularity.

The Labour Party Manifesto was received very favourably by many party members at the time. According to Cowley and Kavanagh: “The manifesto also enjoyed huge interest among party supporters and activists, with candidates and local organisers talking about how the policy had energised party workers and given them something to offer voters.”

Our own post-election polling found that 28% of Labor voters in 2017 said their main reason for voting for the party was the party’s manifesto and program, making this the most common motivation.

A comparison of the 2017 questions suggests that a similar number of Labor voters think the party’s program is affordable (50%) as in 2019 (51%) and 2017 (also 51%).

While the vast majority of Labour voters see the party’s platform as “good for Britain” (76%), this is slightly down on 2019 (83%). They are, however, slightly more likely to see it as realistic (60% now, compared with 55% in 2019).

Significantly more Labour voters thought Corbyn’s manifestos had a lot of policies (78% in 2017 and 74% in 2019) than Starmer’s (52%). Of course, the extent to which a manifesto with a lot of policies is a positive attribute is debatable: a more obvious measure of approval is whether those policies are well thought out.

On this measure, the 2017 manifesto scores higher among Labour voters than the 2024 bid. Two-thirds (68%) think the party’s policies were well thought out in 2017, compared with 59% this year – about the same as those who thought so in 2019 (58%).

Among the general public, 28% believe the policies outlined in the 2017 and 2024 manifestos were well thought out, while fewer people share this view of the 2019 document (20%).

With their popularity plummeting, fewer Britons see the Conservative Party’s promises as good ones. Just 15% think they are well thought out, down from 27% in 2019 under Boris Johnson and 21% in 2019 under Theresa May.

Conservative voters are also noticeably more skeptical about the feasibility and affordability of the party’s plans. While three-quarters (73-74%) felt they were ahead of the 2019 elections, for the 2024 elections this figure dropped to 57% for realism and 50% for affordability.

Most people don’t think that parties keep their manifesto promises anyway

There is widespread cynicism in society about parties keeping their election promises. Only a fifth (20%) believe that winning parties generally keep all or most of their manifesto promises.

Fully half of Britons (53%) believe that parties fail to keep most of their promises, while 22% say that they fail to keep all or almost all of their commitments.

Do these expectations conflict with reality? Analysis by the Institute of Government found that the Tories have failed to deliver on most of the key promises in their 2017 manifesto; conversely, they have delivered on most of their key commitments in their 2015 manifesto. Separate analysis by the Guardian also suggests that the Tories have delivered on most of the key commitments in their 2010 manifesto.

As the 2019 Parliament has only recently concluded, there is no equivalent analysis, although a 2021 survey by the IfG found that by mid-term the Tories had met or were on track to meet most of their commitments.

Full results can be found here

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Photo: Getty