Following the recent local elections that saw relatively high turnouts,  Robert Dale examines the long term decline seen in electorate turnout

An election result is a bit like a thermometer. It tells us the temperature – but not which way the wind is blowing. And the ins and outs of first-past-the-post mean that we see everything through a rather murky pane.

One thing that strikes me about elections these days is the lack of voters. Overall turnout has fallen from over 70 per cent in the 1980s and 1990s to just under 60 per cent at the 2024 general election.

Turnout at UK general elections since 1974

If I look a little closer, I see enthusiasm for Tony Blair’s Labour already building by 1997 – and slumping straight away in 2001. (The total vote actually fell in 1997 as Tory voters stayed at home.) An increase in the late 2010s with a little more motivation around the Brexit wars and the Jeremy Corbyn project. And then Keir Starmer’s ‘historic landslide’, won entirely through miserably low participation. I’ll come back to the Labour vote later, let’s stick with turnout for the moment.

In the most heavily working class constituencies turnout has fallen to around 50 per cent. Sunderland, Hartlepool, Grimsby; East Ham, Ilford, Dagenham; Thanet; Merthyr and the Rhondda; Wolverhampton, Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent; Rotherham and Doncaster, Oldham and Rochdale. Take a look at the full list at the end.

In fact, the scale of the passive boycott is understated, as many people aren’t even on the electoral roll. Some eight million, the Electoral Commission estimated a couple of years ago. That’s 12,000 per constituency! And workers are twice as likely to be missing as bosses and managers.

You might wonder whether turnout has always been so low in those seats. Or maybe people don’t bother voting because they are mostly safe labour seats (or at least they were until recently). Well, they were solid Labour 30 years ago, with significantly higher turnout (between 10 and 20 percentage points). And the list certainly includes hotly contested seats (both Thurrock constituencies for instance).

In fact, one of the things I found most intriguing as I poked around in the figures was the combination of political excitement and voter apathy that often showed up. The recent Gorton and Denton by-election, for example. Everything to play for, the press and pundits agreed. And exactly half the registered voters felt it was worth the walk to a polling station.

The same can be said of several of the seats won by pro-Palestine independents at the 2024 general election, where both sides felt the stakes were high: Birmingham Perry Barr (turnout 49%), Blackburn (53%), and Dewsbury and Batley (53%). Birmingham Yardley, where Jody McIntyre came close to unseating Jess Phillips – 50 per cent. In Birmingham Ladywood, just 44 per cent turned out for the Shabana Mahmood v Akhmed Yakoob grudge match.

The low-turnout list also includes many constituencies with large BAME populations: Barking, East Ham, West Ham, Smethwick, West Bromwich, Walsall, Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, Wolverhampton South, Leicester East, Bradford East, Bradford West, Gorton and Denton, Oldham West, Manchester Rusholme, Rochdale.

What did get people fired up was the two referendums, IndyRef and Brexit. The Scottish independence vote in 2014 saw 85 per cent turnout. The figure for the Brexit/Remain vote was lower – 72 percent – but still higher than for any other election in the same period (or the election system referendum in 2011, where just 42 per cent could be bothered). Perhaps there was a sense that these were issues that would really put the cat among the pigeons?

The Labour vote

While we’re at it, let’s have a look at the total Labour vote nationwide, over the years.

Total Labour vote at general elections since 1974

Tony Blair’s victory in 1997 stands out. ‘Things can only get better.’ Oh happy days. But they didn’t of course. I was intrigued to see that the big drop in Labour’s vote came in the June 2001 election – before the 2003 Iraq war, before his war crimes, even before 9/11. Before the wheels came off.

If I get out my very broad brush again, I’d say it looks like many workers were already disappointed by Blair’s first term, switched off from parliamentary politics, and never really came back. Except when there was something on the ballot that would put the fear of god into ‘them up there’, something that the Waitrose-shoppers of ‘polite society’ found unthinkable, unspeakable: Scottish independence, Brexit. Boris Johnson in 2019, arguably, to ‘get Brexit done’. And now Reform.

And what about Corbyn in 2017? Labour came close. Turnout was up. The total Labour vote was impressive, surpassed only by 1997 (though it must be said, the electorate had also grown in the intervening two decades, from 43 to 48 million). So where was the Corbyn surge stronger, where was it weaker?

The following table shows the number of additional votes Labour gained in 2017 in a selection of Labour seats. It provides an angle on the extra votes attracted by Corbyn’s campaign.

The Corbyn effect in selected constituencies

It seems like the Corbyn project polled particularly well in student and graduate-heavy constituencies. Those also happen to be the places where the Greens did best in the recent council elections.

Apparently, workers weren’t as readily convinced by a plan for popular reforms without any visible means to push them through. It was no secret that many of Corbyn’s own MPs were actively sabotaging the campaign. Of course Brexit was a complicating factor at the time, but I think the observation stands. Like it or not, Corbyn went down better at Glastonbury than he did in Grimsby.

This article is part of a loose series trying to make sense of the collapse of the established parties, the rise of the ‘far right’, and the ‘progressive’ surge. So far I have looked at the great dispossession of the past five decades and what Germany can tell us about voting and class. I also found the following especially pertinent: John Westmoreland’s analysis of the 2026 local elections, his piece with Mike Wayne on leafleting in Doncaster, his report on the Lindsey oil refinery closure, and Jim Nightingale’s article on politics in former pit villages in South Yorkshire.

Robert Dale lives in the Berlin region, where he has been active in socialist politics since the 1980s.

Constituencies with turnout under 55 per cent. 2024 general election

Under 45%: Manchester Rusholme, Leeds South, Kingston upon Hull East, Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, Tipton and Wednesbury, Wolverhampton South East, Blackley and Middleton South, Birmingham Ladywood, Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, Birmingham Erdington, Doncaster North, Leeds Central and Headingley, Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough

Under 50%: Liverpool Riverside, Chorley, Blackpool South, Barking, Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, West Ham and Beckton, Barnsley South, Bolton South and Walkden, Bradford South, Manchester Central, Glasgow North East, Wolverhampton North East, Barnsley North, Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare, Nottingham North and Kimberley, Salford, Bradford West, Leicester West, Gorton and Denton, Stoke-on-Trent Central, East Ham, Swansea West, Normanton and Hemsworth, Rhondda and Ogmore, Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, Smethwick, Sheffield South East, Rotherham, Brent East, Coventry East, Croydon West, Rawmarsh and Conisbrough, Birmingham Perry Barr, Aberafan Maesteg, West Bromwich, Birmingham Yardley, Easington, Bradford East, Walsall and Bloxwich, Luton South and South Bedfordshire, Hartlepool, Torfaen, Ashton-under-Lyne

Under 51%: Knowsley, Newport East, Wythenshawe and Sale East, Feltham and Heston, Heywood and Middleton North, Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton, Queen’s Park and Maida Vale, Birmingham Selly Oak, Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham, Doncaster Central, Dagenham and Rainham, Ilford South, Birmingham Northfield, Dudley

Under 52%: Houghton and Sunderland South, Glenrothes and Mid Fife, Nottingham South, Thurrock, Poplar and Limehouse, Derby South, Erith and Thamesmead, Glasgow East, Glasgow North, Leigh and Atherton, Hayes and Harlington, Stalybridge and Hyde, Huddersfield, Preston, Leeds East, Brent West, Stoke-on-Trent North, Luton North, Glasgow South West, Pontypridd, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, Halifax

Under 53%: Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice, Birmingham Edgbaston, Washington and Gateshead South, Foyle, Strangford, Airdrie and Shotts, Jarrow and Gateshead East, Dundee Central, Sheffield Heeley, Nottingham East, Sunderland Central, Sheffield Central, Neath and Swansea East, Caerphilly, Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Blyth and Ashington, Wigan, Belfast West, Portsmouth South, Scunthorpe, Tottenham,

Under 54%: Burnley Blackburn, Dewsbury and Batley, St Helens South and Whiston, Liverpool Walton, Bootle, Slough, Stockton North, Hackney South and Shoreditch, Coatbridge and Bellshill, Boston and Skegness, Cities of London and Westminster, St Helens North, Cardiff South and Penarth, Cardiff East, Peckham, Stratford and Bow, Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, South Shields, Vauxhall and Camberwell Green

Under 55%: Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, Worsley and Eccles, Bermondsey and Old Southwark, East Antrim, Holborn and St Pancras, Edmonton and Winchmore Hill, Wakefield and Rothwell, Hyndburn, Bolton North East, Kensington and Bayswater, Widnes and Halewood, Liverpool West Derby, Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke, Chatham and Aylesford, Redcar, South Basildon and East Thurrock, York Central, Belfast North, Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, East Londonderry, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Southampton Test, Rochdale, Oxford East, North East Cambridgeshire, Basildon and Billericay, Leeds West and Pudsey