The Poll-tergeist: Our Fragmented Politics and Labour’s ‘Progressive Defectors’ | ep. 144

The world that Compass has long predicted is now becoming self-evident: Britain no longer lives in its two-party system. The Conservative-Labour duality that has dominated British politics since the 20th Century is no longer a given. Our politics has fragmented.Five parties are now regularly polling in double figures. Reform have led every poll since May 2025, Labour are sitting at half of their 2024 vote share in under two years, the Tories sit in the wilderness. Amongst all of this, the Greens have surged, reaching all-time polling highs of 21%, while the Lib Dems are beginning to stagnate in fifth place and their own internal divisions are starting to show.So how do we make sense of all of this? How has it happened and which voters are going where?To get into the detail of all of it, our Director Neal Lawson is joined by Persuasion UK’s Steve Akehurst. Persuasion have recently released their new paper, ‘Revolt on the left: Getting to know Labour’s ‘Progressive Defectors”, showing how the largest swathes of Labour’s 2024 voters are going to the Green Party instead of Reform.Steve Akehurst is Director of Persuasion UK and leads their research work. He has spent his career working at the intersection of politics, policy and public attitudes, with a focus on communications-orientated polling research. In recent years, he has specialised in global attitudes to the Net Zero transition. In addition, Steve has written extensively about UK electoral battlegrounds, being the first person to coin the term ‘Blue Wall’ and define these constituencies in a UK context. His work has featured in the likes of The Times, Telegraph, FT and Guardian.Support the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice.