Cutting public spending and taxes in the UK is more popular with voters than ever before, a new study has found – in a potential warning to Labour.
Support for more tax-and-spend has fallen rapidly in recent years, with 60 per cent of the public opposing any further growth in the tax burden after a rapid expansion in the size of the state.
Research by Sir John Curtice and his team on the British Social Attitudes survey also found that the views of voters towards immigration have grown more negative in response to the large increase in net migration.
The results suggest that if Labour moved in a more left-wing direction, the party could face a backlash from the public. Most MPs who have called for Sir Keir Starmer to resign have also said that the party should move to the left at the same time, with Angela Rayner – the favourite to replace Starmer if he did step down – seen as significantly more left wing than the current Prime Minister.
The Labour left has been pushing for higher taxes, including a wealth tax, in order to ramp up spending on welfare and public services.
The survey has been taking place annually since 1983, allowing an unparalleled comparison of how public opinion on key political issues has changed over time. The latest edition surveyed 4,680 people over the autumn of last year.
Asked whether the Government should increase tax and spend more on health, education and welfare, 36 per cent said that it should and 19 per cent said that it should tax and spend less, with 41 per cent suggesting that the current level is about right.
The proportion of people supporting a cut in taxation and spending is higher now than it has ever been: the figure never went as high as 10 per cent until 2023, and before that, an outright majority of voters wanted higher spending funded by a bigger tax take.
Curtice said that the change in public opinion appeared to be driven by an increase in the size of state spending to unprecedented peacetime levels, with the last Conservative government steadily raising taxes and Rachel Reeves going further at both the Budgets she has held. Attempts to trim back spending, such as by reforming disability benefits, have been prevented by rebellions from backbench MPs.
He told The i Paper: “The last parliament, continuing into this parliament, has seen the biggest expansion of the state since 1945.
“Obviously on the public spending side, it was the highest in Covid, but public spending is still running at a higher level than most of the 70s, 80s and 90s. And taxation, of course, is gradually also moving in the direction of a record level. So the expansion of the state is more dramatic than it was under New Labour.”
But he added that there is a growing gap between the views of different groups of voters, with supporters of left-of-centre parties still wanting a larger state, while those who back the Conservatives or Reform UK think the opposite. Curtice said: “It’s not necessarily to a Labour government’s disadvantage to still be trying to run a relatively big state, because that’s where their supporters are.”
On welfare policy too there has been a major swing away from support for more generosity: more than 40 per cent oppose higher spending on benefits, with the proportion who back it falling below 30 per cent.
Co-author Alex Scholes said: “What the report’s been tracking is that you see a steady decrease in the proportion who say that the priority should be on retirement pensions, and a steady increase on those benefits for working age people – be that you know child benefit and single parents, or benefits for disabled people.”
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Immigration has also seen a big change in public perception over the past few years: after a decade-long period where migration was seen as broadly good for the economy and for cultural life, more voters now regard it as a negative on both counts – although views are still more positive than they were 15 years ago.
Curtice said: “The irony is that public opinion was already beginning to shift at the time of the EU referendum, and we did become much more convinced that maybe actually we did need migrants, perhaps because, of course, there were some people now making the case for freedom of movement in a way that wasn’t true before the referendum – but inevitably, things have now moved back.”
Another finding from the research shows that more voters support reform to the electoral system than oppose it, a shift from previous years as politics becomes more fragmented with multiple parties vying for power.
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