Voters find Starmer’s Labour more patriotic than Tories

Voters think that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is more proud to be British than the Conservatives under Rishi Sunak, polling has found ahead of the general election.

Mr Sunak was scored second lowest in a list of politicians when it came to perceptions about patriotism, with only Jeremy Corbyn viewed as less patriotic than the Prime Minister.

The research by the UCL Policy Lab and the More in Common think tank also found that the public think that politicians are less patriotic today than they used to be.

Last week, More in Common polled 2,037 adults in Great Britain on the subject of patriotism.

Respondents were asked to think about a number of political parties under various recent leaders and “to what extent would you say they are proud or embarrassed to be British”.

Two in five (40 per cent) thought that the Labour Party under Sir Keir is proud to be British, with 13 per cent thinking it is embarrassed.

For the Conservatives under Mr Sunak, 24 per cent felt that the party is proud to be British, with 28 per cent believing the Tories under his leadership are embarrassed to be British.

The Tories under Mr Sunak also scored below the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson, and Reform UK under Nigel Farage.

Thirty-six per cent said that Reform under Mr Farage was proud to be British, with 21 per cent believing them to be embarrassed. Thirty one per cent felt the Tories under Mr Johnson were proud to be British, compared to to the same amount who thought the party was embarrassed to be British.

Personal patriotism

The personal patriotism scores of party leaders paint a similar picture.

Sir Keir’s net patriotism score – calculated by those who think the Labour leader is patriotic minus those who think he is not – is +36.

This was twice as high as the score for Mr Johnson (+18), and higher again for Mr Sunak’s score, which is in the negative territory of minus-11.

In a list of 10 British politicians, only Mr Corbyn was deemed less patriotic, on minus-18.

Since taking over as leader, Sir Keir has tried to reposition Labour as a patriotic party in stark contrast to the Corbyn years.

Whereas Mr Corbyn was criticised in 2015 for not singing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial ceremony, in 2022 Sir Keir made the decision that it should be sung at Labour’s annual party conference.

Writing for The Telegraph in advance of St George’s Day in April, he also said that Labour would not flinch at flying the flag of St George.

But his embrace of patriotism has not been universally welcomed in Labour circles. In March, several unnamed Labour MPs were reported to have criticised the use of the Union flag on the party’s campaign materials, claiming it might alienate voters from ethnic minorities.

Mr Sunak’s polling figures are meanwhile likely to reflect the row over his decision to leave D-Day commemorations early.

According to the polling, patriotism matters to voters, with 79 per cent saying it is important for a political leader to be patriotic.

However, the public are twice as likely to say that political leaders are less patriotic than they used to be (49 per cent) than those who say they are no more or no less patriotic than in the past (25 per cent).

The highest patriotism score recorded in the list of 10 politicians was for Winston Churchill (+71) – almost twice as high as the score for any current political leader.

Marc Stears, director of UCL Policy Lab, said: “Patriotism has been at the very core of Conservative party electoral appeal since the 19th century. But in this election the party appears to have spectacularly lost its historic patriotism advantage.”

“Keir Starmer now has a significant lead over Rishi Sunak when people are asked who is the most patriotic of the political leaders, and also surpasses Nigel Farage.

“This is in spite of considerable efforts by the Conservatives to retain the patriotic mantle, including through their commitment to extending defence spending, controversial policies like the Rwanda scheme and frequent attacks on their rivals as unpatriotic.”

He added: “In an already difficult week for Conservative strategists, these findings will come as another blow, signifying, as they do, a potentially tectonic shift in British politics.”