Back in November, I wrote an article where I looked at the attitudes of senior financial decision-makers from SMEs in the UK to the budget, analysing their reaction to what was published in the budget and their thoughts about the government and politics more widely. One of the things I included was a comparison of the voting intent of these business leaders’ vs the general public overall. Back then my compare/contrast was using Opinium’s data, but I am now repeating the exercise using our own Public Pulse data.
Public Pulse monitors UK opinion about politics, the economy and the major issues facing the country. We’ll be making the data available to end clients and brands every month.
Voting intent: a shifting landscape
To re-cap on public voting intent – Public Pulse has, over the last four months, seen Reform rising from 18% in November to 25% in February, a rise that mirrors Labour’s fall from 30% to 25%. The other parties have changed little over this period, despite Kemi Badenoch becoming leader of the Tories and Sir Ed Davey trying hard to take advantage of Conservative confusion to boost the Liberal Democrats.
Business leaders are bucking the trend
What is fascinating though is that while Labour have dipped and Reform continued to rise among the general public, among the business community support for Labour in February 2025 is higher than where it was in November 2024 (37% vs 31%). Even more surprising is that Reform is pretty much where they were (18% to 19%).
How to explain this? For a start, 1 in 3 business leaders are satisfied with the performance of Sir Keir Starmer (32%) and Rachel Reeves (33%) in their respective roles. While more may be dissatisfied (46% and 40%) respectively, this still means that a sizeable minority are happy with their performance, with little change from September 2024 when we last asked this question. Looking across the polling of other companies shows that public opinion on Starmer or Reeves is far more negative than this.
Economic optimism from the business community
More vitally though, is that business leaders are a lot more positive about the policies the government has in place, or is developing, to improve the country’s economic interests.
To take two examples, more business leaders agree than disagree (48% to 28%) that the government has policies that will improve the economic prospects of the business or organisation they work for. Similarly, more business leaders agree than disagree (47% to 27%) that the government has policies that will improve the economic prospects of the UK as a whole. In contrast, the general public is hugely more likely to disagree than agree, especially on the latter. While business leaders in the UK may not all be fans of the Labour government and its leadership, more of them seem to think that the government has the policies in place to improve things, and for now, this translates into continued support for Labour.
Sector-by-sector: shifting political allegiances
There are some differences by sector that are worth discussing. The Retail and Services sectors have traditionally been stalwart Labour supporters, and this remains true. What is fascinating though is that the Construction sector, previously very Tory, seems to have swung behind the Labour Party over the past four months (+20 points to 42%). This is mirrored by a similar fall in Reform support in the Construction sector (-12 points). The Labour Party’s messaging towards this sector is clearly achieving cut-through.
Among the right-wing opposition parties, the Tories and Reform have split the vote of the Manufacturing sectors, but the Tories retain a significant lead in the Service sector. Meanwhile, Reform has the edge when it comes to Construction and Retail. That said, it is only in the Manufacturing sector where either party come close to threatening Labour’s level of popularity.
What this means for Labour’s support
That last point is an important one given how Labour support has held up among business leaders. If Labour can continue as they have done, and if business leaders maintain their faith that government policy is taking the country and its economy in (roughly) the right direction, then Labour’s support may well prove to be resilient, at least in the short to medium term (and assuming no mishaps). In this case, it will take real effort, or some form of event, for the Conservatives or Reform to make a dent in Labour’s support among business leaders. This will leave them fighting over the same pool of potential support, rather than expanding their appeal significantly. As ever, we shall see what happens.
These findings offer a small preview of the Public Pulse report, available monthly from late April. It will also include insights such as top issues facing the UK, confidence in the Government’s ability to deal with them and a comparison between business leaders and the general public.
