Labour thinks it can get away with its freebie free-for-all. The public disagrees.

YouGov has some interesting polling data for us about Labour. Just months after taking power, the general public already disapprove significantly of Keir Starmer’s party – right in the middle of the Labour conference.

For the love of Labour freebies

The love of Labour freebies in Starmer’s team is a particularly bad look. Putting the dodgy £4m tax-haven donation to one side, the media has shown the public just how much free stuff Starmer and his gang of neoliberal cronies have been gobbling up. And funnily enough, most people aren’t impressed. 64% of people find such behaviour unacceptable, to varying degrees.

Anyone who’s been following Keir Starmer since his deceptive campaign to become Labour leader will have known for a while that his words are worthless.

Starmer’s Labour: no better than the Tories?

But now, YouGov says, “the attribute the public are most likely to give Labour” is that of “dishonest”. Coming close behind were “the same as the rest” and “only interested in themselves”. Hard to disagree there. It almost sounds like the definition of Wes Streeting.

Also, we already knew that 48% of people who voted Labour in both 2019 and 2024 “would consider voting for other parties”. But “one in seven Labour voters (14%) go so far as to say that they regret having voted for the party“, according to YouGov. And “nearly a quarter of those who voted Labour in July (23%) already describe their opinion of the party as unfavourable”.

With “a clear majority (57%)” now viewing the party negatively, it’s almost as if the British public are not big fans of corporate bribes, freezing pensioners, leaving kids in poverty, or supporting a genocide. In fact, it’s surprising and disappointing that a third of people are still ok with all that.

However, given we’re less than three months into a Labour government, with Starmer’s personal approval ratings tanking, and the public already wise to the fact that there is little difference between red and blue cronyism – will the party even see a second term in power?

Featured image via the Canary