Lurch to the left or the right? Where Labour and the Tories must position themselves to win in 2020

What are the best political positions for Labour and the Conservatives to take to win back more voters? The Tories want to maintain and extend their victory, while Labour is trying to work out how to unite the left and encourage more people to turn out for the party. These two parties used to focus their attention on swing voters in the centre-ground, but politics has fragmented too much for that now.

Things are, naturally, more difficult for Labour. The scale of its 2015 defeat means that just taking votes and seats from the SNP, Plaid and the Greens is insufficient to give the party a majority in 2020. The party will only win by taking seats currently held by the Conservatives, and it can only win enough of them by taking votes from parties to their right, or motivating new voters to turn out for them.

To see how best Labour can win, Demos analysed the survey responses in the British Election Study’s latest release: existing Labour voters, those who support parties considered to be left of Labour (SNP, Greens and Plaid) and non-voters who consider themselves closest to Labour, who we have called ‘Labour leaners’.

While the SNP/Green/Plaid group might appreciate a move to the left, they do not give Labour enough support for it to cancel out the damage this would do to the party’s standing among Labour-leaners, who are more centrist both economically and socially.

Furthermore, a move to the left will not help Labour win over those who supported the Tories in 2015.