The British Election Study
Britain’s oldest social survey. We provide non-partisan and independent data and research on elections in Britain.
- 🚨Data Update 🚨 We have released an updated version of our panel data. This version includes a correction to our p_ethnicity variables, which affected 7.8% of our respondents. There is also a very small correction to our geographic variables. More ⬇️ www.britishelectionstudy.com/uncategorize...
- 🚨Data Update 🚨 We are pleased to release an updated version of the 2024 BES Face-to-Face Post-Election Survey dataset (v1.0.1) that includes improved versions of two important survey weights (wt_demog and wt_vote) based on new estimates of the VEP. www.britishelectionstudy.com/2024-general...
- BES Research Fellow @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social has spoken with The Economist about our Parliamentary Affairs paper on how British voters are volatile, but their choices are now structured by party blocs after the Brexit realignment. Read here: www.economist.com/britain/2025...
- The Economist's piece also references work by @profjanegreen.bsky.social and @martamiori.bsky.social on tactical voting in 2024, and a paper that includes BES team member @jack-bailey.co.uk on Keir Starmer's "Island of Strangers" speech.
- You can read our paper here: academic.oup.com/pa/advance-a... You can read Marta and Jane's paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... You can read the working paper on the Islands of Strangers speech here: osf.io/preprints/so...
- 🚨DATA RELEASE 🚨 The BES team are pleased to announce the release of Wave 30 of the British Election Study Internet Panel. Please follow the link below, and we look forward to seeing your research! www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-resource...
- 🚨New Research 🚨 Ahead of the release of Wave 30 of the BES Internet Panel, the team has examined Labour's decline since the 2024 GE. Labour's support has splintered into mostly indecision or left-liberal parties, but they've also lost their few right-wing voters. 🧵⬇️ tinyurl.com/3m62exph
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View full threadOne of the big reasons that Labour is losing voters is economy insecurity: tinyurl.com/yywv2mbw However, the problem for the Labour Party is that their 2024 voters are not convinced by their performance in office.
- Labour's slump is significant. Labour’s vote has splintered between indecision and other left-liberal parties, with its rightward shift yielding little gain. Labour's main competition for their 2024 voters are other left-liberal parties. They have time to win them back, but a tough path to do it
- Labour also faces more direct competition from left-liberal parties for the voters that they've lost to indecision. These Lab -> undecided voters like the Liberal Democrats, Greens, and Plaid Cymru a lot more than they like Reform UK and the Conservatives. So, these party blocs matter.
- Labour's strategy since the election seems designed to appeal to right-conservative voters. This strategy hasn't worked on its own terms because they have lost the (very few) right-wing voters that they had, while also losing (much) larger numbers of left-wing voters.
- Labour's support has splintered. Over 1 in 5 of their 2024 voters are now undecided. Labour could win these back, but there is a risk. The Conservatives lost a similar amount to indecision after the last 3 elections, and they won most back in 2017 and 2019 (but not 2024).
- Labour's next biggest losses are to left-liberal parties (Liberal Democrats and Greens). Reform's growth in support has mostly come from the Conservatives and non-voting (much less from Labour). These reflect patterns of party-bloc voting that we saw in the 2024 UK GE: tinyurl.com/y5pv7thw
- Labour's decline in support is remarkable. Support for Labour has fallen more sharply after this election than it has for any other winning party covered by the BESIP (though the timings between waves are not identical).
- 🚨NEW DATA 🚨 The BES team are pleased to announce the release of the 2024 Random Probability Survey Release v1.0.0 You can download the data here: www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-object/... You can find our release note here: www.britishelectionstudy.com/uncategorize...
- New publication by the @britishelectionstudy.com team! @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social has summarised the main findings in this thread, but you can also find the paper here: academic.oup.com/pa/advance-a...
- 🚨NEW PUBLICATION 🚨 Though people have moved on from Brexit, they still vote in line with their Brexit preferences - with age/education still separating voters. Voters now back party blocs, which matters greatly for Labour's current appeals to Reform voters. 🧵 academic.oup.com/pa/advance-a...
- If you're interested in what the local elections mean for the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, or the Greens, then @profjanegreen.bsky.social has a new explainer for you! You can read more about it here: tinyurl.com/2s48bbf4 Or you can watch here: youtu.be/T9pKpbECtKk?...
- Are you interested in the local elections? Do you want to know more about what they mean for Reform UK? If so, you should watch these explainers by @profjanegreen.bsky.social Tips for interpreting the locals: tinyurl.com/28jwpbub What it means for Reform: tinyurl.com/2sxrzeva
- Are you interested in the local elections? Do you want to know more about what they mean for Reform UK? If so, you should watch these explainers by @profjanegreen.bsky.social Tips for interpreting the locals: tinyurl.com/28jwpbub What it means for Reform: tinyurl.com/2sxrzeva
- The British Election Study team are happy to announce the release of our results file, which compiles 2024 election results, census data, candidate information, and other contextual data by constituency in Britain. You can download the results file here: www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-object/...
- 🚨New Data 🚨 The British Election Study team are happy to announce the release of the 2024 Expert Survey. We have also released the Trend File, which includes data from the 2014-2024 expert surveys. Thank you to those who completed the survey! Find the data here: tinyurl.com/BES-Expert-2...
- 📣 Data update 📣 We have updated our Teaching Dataset to include our 2024 waves (26-29) These datasets (wide/long) have a condensed number of variables, which are designed for use by teaching professionals. Available here: www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-objects...
- 📢Data Update 📢 We have released an updated version of the British Election Study Internet Panel, alongside waves 20, 27, and 29 with some minor fixes. This includes rectifying a small labelling issue with our selfPriorities variables. Find data here: britishelectionstudy.com/data/
- Reflections from our team on 60th Year Anniversary of the BES youtu.be/aRzpVQjrfVk?... @profjanegreen.bsky.social @universityofoxford.bsky.social @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social @caprosser.bsky.social @jack-bailey.co.uk @jonmellon.bsky.social @nuffieldlibrary.bsky.social
- 🚨New Research🚨 @profjanegreen.bsky.social and @mlsohnius.bsky.social have explored disillusionment among young voters, which was featured on @BBCr4today. You can read the blog here: disq.us/t/4qqlcl2 Or you can listen to Prof Green here (from 02:40:55): www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
- 📣 New Research 📣 We're excited to see your analyses of the new post-2024 GE BES data For now, @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social @profjanegreen.bsky.social and Ed Fieldhouse have looked at what we know about Reform Watch: youtu.be/Z8s9hzTsruc?... Read: www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-impact/b...
- In short, Reform UK's voters are mostly ex-Conservative and UKIP voters, who believe that immigration is the key issue facing Britain and that the Conservatives cannot reduce it. As a result, they are very similar to UKIP voters in 2015!
- Happy #EPOP2024 everyone. We are pleased to announce the release of waves 27, 28, and 29 of the BES Internet Panel. You can find the panel, and the standalone files, on our website: www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-object/...
- We are here at the @britishacademy.bsky.social to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the British Election Study, with a presentation from Professor Ed Fieldhouse and discussion from @paulbrand.bsky.social Can't be here? Don't worry, we will publish our event on YouTube later!
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View full threadProfessor Fieldhouse is now discussing what the British Election Study can tell us about the latest UK General Election. The main story is that we have high volatility between elections, but people tend to switch within 'party families'
- We now move to discussing what the results in Professor Fieldhouse's talk mean for British politics with @paulbrand.bsky.social
- To begin, Professor Fieldhouse is giving us an overview of the history and the British Election Study, and the contribution that it has made to understanding British politics
- 📢New blog In our first post-election analysis, @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social , @profjanegreen.bsky.social, and Ed Fieldhouse explore how tactical voting helped the Liberal Democrats when they were the anti-Conservative option Watch our summary: youtu.be/LSAdGa3bBnQ?... Read here: shorturl.at/iet8O
- 🚨 New Datasets 🚨 We have published two new datasets: 1. A condensed version of the BES internet panel, designed for use by teaching professionals. 2. A supplementary dataset, which can link Wave 22 with the Scottish/Welsh Election Studies. 👇👇 www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-objects... polisky 🌐
- 🌐📊🚨NEW DATA🚨📊🌐 We're pleased to announce that we have updated the 2019 BES random probability data to now include validated voting data and a host of other fixes. Click to download and scroll down for some important information. www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-object/...
- Due to the pandemic, some local authorities could not provide marked registers. As such, those respondents for whom we do not have data are not missing at random. We therefore recommend that users proceed with caution and investigate the data thoroughly before using them.
- As per usual, we also keep a change log. There are quite a lot of changes this time, so please take note.
- New research! The BES team explores Brexit's persistence and why the Conservatives are losing support. Brexit still guides vote in Britain, but the Conservatives face losses among pro/anti-Europe voters critical of their performance. polisky 🌐 www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings...
- New research! The BES team explores Brexit's persistence and why the Conservatives are losing support. Brexit still guides vote in Britain, but the Conservatives face losses among pro/anti-Europe voters critical of their performance. www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings...
- 🌐📊 BES Internet Panel Wave 25 is live! 📈🌐 - Covers the May 2023 local elections - New questions on attitudes towards the economy, including new measures on nationalisation - Fixes to profiles data to ensure maximum completeness on demographics www.britishelectionstudy.com/uncategorize...
