The Times has published polling today from JL Partners saying that trade union members are as likely to support Reform UK as Labour.
Around 1,000 trade union members were polled, and Reform UK and Labour both attracted 28% support. In 2024 Labour was on 24% with union members.
According to the poll, Reform UK is also comfortably ahead amongst Unite members (on 36%, against 30% for Labour) and amongst GMB members (on 31%, against 22% for Labour). But Unison members are slightly more pro-Labour (28%) than pro-Reform UK (25%), the poll suggests.
Commenting on the poll, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said:
Labour is no longer the party of the patriotic working class. That mantle now belongs to Reform.
Union leaders told the Times the figures showed Labour would be on course for electoral wipe-out without a significant change of course.
Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, told the paper Labour had “no natural right to exist” and that there was “no guarantee that workers will return”. She said:
Labour has abandoned the working class, and the working class have abandoned Labour.
Being prepared to cut the winter fuel allowance, slash benefits for the disabled and aid and abet a jobless transition for oil and gas workers at the same time workers and their families are struggling with a baked-in cost of living crisis is not the change people voted for.
And Gary Smith, the GMB general secretary, told the paper:
Reform are no friends of workers. They want to cancel hugely important union rights and are targeting the pensions of the low paid.
But Labour has to show working-class people it can be on their side — as it did with last week’s essential help for our ceramics industry.
