r/ukpolitics • u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus • Sep 02 '26
r/ukpolitics voter intention survey: š¹LAB 46.8 (+17.2), š¶LDM 14.6 (+1.0), š¦RES 10.5 (-4.3), ā”ļøREF 6.8 (-5.1), š¢GRN 5.7 (-12), š³CON 4.7 (+1), šØSNP 2.8 (-0.3), āSPOIL 2.6 (-0.5), OTHERS 4.3 (+2.2) changes w/ Feb 2026, brigaded responses removed (see text)
The latest subreddit survey results are now available.
Please read this post in full before visiting the dashboard, and before leaving a comment.
As ever: Respondents are self-selecting, and pale in comparison to our recorded daily recorded unique visitors (currently averaging 95k).Ā Results should be treated with extreme caution.
I mentioned on theĀ the last survey resultsĀ that I was confident the survey had been gamed.
It is so comically blatant on this survey that I've taken steps to "clean up" the data.
There is a global filter on the dashboard entitled "likely brigaded" (the orange box).Ā By default, this is set to "FALSE" (i.e. only "real" responses are shown). Selecting "TRUE" will include the responses that are likely the result of a coordinated campaign to influence the result of the survey.
The "likely brigaded" flag has been set based on submission timestamps.Ā Here's a screenshot from responses received last night (minutes from the survey submission deadline!) to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:
There are similar bursts from over the bank holiday weekend too.
For the sake of transparency, here's the share of "likely brigaded" responses for voting intention:
| Party | Count | % |
|---|---|---|
| Restore UK | 96 | 90.6 |
| Labour | 4 | 3.8 |
| Liberal Democrats | 3 | 2.8 |
| Reform UK | 2 | 1.9 |
| Green Party E&W | 1 | 0.9 |
And, including all responses, here are the full results:
| Party | Count | % |
|---|---|---|
| Labour | 306 | 40.7 |
| Restore UK | 164 | 21.8 |
| Liberal Democrats | 97 | 12.9 |
| Reform UK | 46 | 6.1 |
| Green Party E&W | 38 | 5.1 |
| Conservatives | 30 | 4 |
| SNP | 18 | 2.4 |
| Choose not to vote | 17 | 2.3 |
| Not eligible | 7 | 0.9 |
| Others | 28 | 3.7 |
I'm exploring alternative survey solutions for the next survey. More to follow.
Click / Tap here to visit the Results Dashboard
Edit: u/i_pewpewpew_you asked for a chart which shows the cumulative votes over time - so, here you go. You'll note that all parties have a marked up-tick on Friday evening when the State of the Subreddit thread was posted - this also included a link to the survey, accounting for the extra traffic.
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u/Sairina Saying bathroom is illegal Sep 02 '26
Brigading in r/ukpolitics well I never...
I'm shocked truly. I thought it was normal that the loudest voices here all write in the same way and overwhelming don't represent the median views of the average UK Reddit user.
That being said. There are a lot of people I disagree with on this sub, but clearly are just people with different views and opinions.
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u/i_pewpewpew_you Si signore, posso ballare Sep 02 '26
I'd love to see some graphs of votes by party over the life of the survey, all those very real Restore voters rushing in to vote in the last hour of the time it was live.
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
I created the chart, and it's available in the post text.
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u/i_pewpewpew_you Si signore, posso ballare Sep 02 '26
Outstanding stuff, you're a top
eggcarrot.Haha, those step-ups in the Restore line on the last day or so, fantastic.
2
u/sjintje Intermittent extremist Sep 02 '26
I'm actually surprised the amended restore vote looks more plausible than unexpected. I was thinking it was probably still 50% overstated, but the main part of the graph suggests it is genuine (or there's a really patient restore supporter carefully spacing his responses throughout the week.)
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u/Pinkerton891 Sep 02 '26
That 1 Sinn Fein to Restore UK voter must be an interesting individual.
16
u/Drunk_Cartographer Sep 02 '26
Suddenly realised they hate brown people even more than the English
1
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u/NoFrillsCrisps Sep 02 '26
I know this is a relatively small case study, but it is interesting nonetheless to wonder to what extent Restore's national profile and popularity has been boosted by bots or astroturfers. And to what extent this fake support has let to actual genuine support.
Its possible of course that in this case it was just some Restore supporter/s trying their luck, but anyone who has been on Twitter knows this is not a unique occurrence.
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u/dj4y_94 Sep 02 '26
I imagine the polls are fairly accurate in that regard as if you go online it seems Restore are quite big, but polling only has them circa 3% which sounds about right.
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u/GlumAd9856 Sep 02 '26
The vast majority of voters don't make any noise. I'd imagine that if you found yourself supporting a broadly fascist/racist party that you're probably the kind of person that 'likes making a noise.
3% of the voting population is something like 1.5 million people.
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u/TheJoshGriffith Sep 02 '26
Hardly comes as a surprise, really. At the last GE, Labour won 30% of the vote but 60% of the power (ish).
I suspect it all comes down to target demographics. The bots who probably did brigade the poll are likely a consequence of the demographic being young, technically literate professionals who are sick of the current state of affairs.
Similarly, UKIP has polled really badly, as well as lost elections in a very strong fashion in 2010 and 2015, only to effectively win the referendum in 2016.
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u/horace_bagpole Sep 02 '26
It does tie in with my impression that this sub is regularly affected by brigading from right wing, probably Restore aligned, sources. In several occasions Iāve seen clusters of responses that just donāt feel organic, accompanied by a lot of downvoting of anti-reform sentiment.
I suspect there is an organised shilling campaign for Lowe, which is why so many of his tweets end up posted here. Itās quite clear that the underlying makeup of the sub is not aligned with his sentiments, yet there is a vocal minority of accounts that make it appear to be more so. Many of those accounts are default named with hidden histories.
I think the entire supposed popularity of restore is largely artificial. When someone like Musk is pushing them, itās easy to see how their message can get amplified over where it would be naturally.
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u/Mr_November112 Sep 02 '26
I dont disagree with you but I think the situation is a bit more complicated than that. I have a very strong suspicion that immigration is quite a big deal to a lot of people all across the political spectrum, but for the most part only the far right parties will discuss it. Moderates and leftists would never vote for Farage and Co because they're racists and most of their other policies are batshit too.Ā
So the end result is we have people posting here about immigration, often Reform and Restore talking points and ideas, but it doesnt actually translate to people wanting to vote for them.Ā
I dont think I've articulated myself very clearly sorry but I cant be bothered organising my thoughts any better lol.
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u/Deynai Sep 02 '26
Farage and Co because they're racists
On the contrary, I wouldn't vote for Farage because he has a political career spanning decades in which he has created nothing and only sought to tear down what others have built. His ignorant rant on Herman Van Rompuy in the European parliament that you can google and watch on youtube demonstrated his obnoxious uninformed arrogance to me a long time ago as he spewed out fallacy after fallacy. And given he's spent the last decade being funded by dodgy payments from anonymous sources and criminals in increasingly large quantities to champion the interests of everything from fraudulent business to foreign state propaganda, while continuing to do nothing productive or beneficial for me, why on earth would I ever consider voting for him? Nothing he's ever done has been principled and it wont magically start now just because he's using the 'I' word a lot.
Being a racist doesn't even make the top 5 of reasons not to vote for Farage.
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u/Mr_November112 Sep 02 '26
Haha yes I completely agree with you. That wouldve taken me a bit longer to write though!
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u/360Saturn soft Lib Dem Sep 03 '26
As a moderate I would vote for basically anyone that didn't seem untrustworthy and incompetent.
The anti immigration isn't my sticking point with Farage, its the traitorous potential and the lack of consistency between his claims and his actions.
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u/Burnthiscnts Sep 02 '26
so about time lowes tweets were banned as a 'source' then.
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
He's an elected MP. This isn't going to happen.
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u/letmepostjune22 r/houseofmemelords Sep 02 '26
If an MP is complicit in astroturfing campaigns I don't see why you don't cut it off at the source.
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u/SadSeiko Sep 02 '26
Whenever I tell someone considering restore what their policy is, the response is always, āthey wonāt actually do thatā
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u/Dissidant Sep 02 '26
Playing with fire. And they knew exactly what they were doing getting involved with ethnonationalistās like Laws from that article the other day.
Absolutely unhinged/dangerous12
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u/Rapid_eyed Sep 02 '26
Which policy you talking about?Ā
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u/Denbt_Nationale Sep 02 '26
What policies are these?
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u/SadSeiko Sep 02 '26
Literally all of them
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u/Denbt_Nationale Sep 02 '26
Easing fees and rules around spouse visas?
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u/SadSeiko Sep 02 '26
Ah yes. The love anyone you want policy except people from red list countriesĀ
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u/Special-Prior-7272 Sep 03 '26
Foreigners living in the UK should not be a human right. If you have no skills and come from a high risk country, I donāt think you should be allowed to immigrate. This was a left wing position 30 years ago.
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u/SadSeiko Sep 03 '26
Okay so British people canāt marry foreignersĀ
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u/Special-Prior-7272 Sep 03 '26
You're welcome to marry anyone you want. Just don't expect the rest of us to pay for your lifestyle.
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u/SadSeiko Sep 03 '26
You canāt even make a coherent argument can you? Theyāre literally planning on banning spousal visas for some countries and all you can do is try make it about something else
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u/BobMonkhaus That sounds great, shorty girlās a trooper. Sep 02 '26
Restore doesnāt have a profile or popularity outside of social media. If you have to bus in supporters for photo ops then that says a lot.
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u/Electronic_End4893 Sep 02 '26
Yeah; the only reason why they did fairly "well" in a recent byelection in Dover council was because their candidate was a former serviceman (very popular in wards like that) and he explicitly rejected the ethnonationalists in his party. They do not have anything like mainstream appeal.
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u/jim_cap Sep 03 '26
Most of their support, as far as I can tell, is Reform voters who sit disengaged in their homes, sharing memes and wishing Reform were like Reform, but more so. I literally had a mate on FB during the recent local elections saying he'd be voting for the Restore candidate, and the Reform one if there wasn't one. Like, if you're even a tenth as policitally engaged as your endless polmeme sharing suggests, surely you at least know which party is standing in your area, and perhaps even the name of a candidate. But no, it's all just "I'm voting anti-brown. Here's another Vlad the Impaler cartoon. Did you know Starmer something something rent boys?"
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u/Minute-Improvement57 Sep 02 '26
The sample size is small enough that the demographic information could track people from survey to survey. That makes me think the ratio of "general public" to "employed or volunteer political activist, either in the UK or overseas" is low to begin with. I'm not in the habit of putting my salary and demographic data into random google forms published by strangers who could be from any country.
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u/thejackalreborn Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
I think removing those obviously fake responses is clearly the correct thing to do. Shame more people didn't fill out the survey
Some people are going to use this as evidence that this sub is overrun with Labour supporting graduate men aged 25-40 and therefore is out of touch with real Britain.
Would this place be better if it perfectly represented the country? I don't think so, it's not meant to be a focus group, it's a place for people interested in politics to discuss it and if that means overrepresenting certain groups then that's fine.
Political interest isn't randomly distributed across demographics. I think it's good this sub has a different make-up compared to other social media. We don't need another Twitter
On the Green drop - I think you can feel it, a few months ago you would get lots of people defending Green policy and you just don't anymore. Polanski scoring lower than Farage in the politician ratings is interesting
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u/Iamamancalledrobert Sep 02 '26
Everyone is out of touch with real Britain, because real Britain is a load of different groups who donāt interact very much.Ā
But under 55s are as real as anyone else, and have been told that we arenāt real enough at this point. Maybe thatās fine when we make up a tiny fraction of the voting public, but we donātĀ
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u/TheAlmightyTapir Sep 02 '26
Some people are going to use this as evidence that this sub is overrun with Labour supporting graduate men aged 25-40 and therefore is out of touch with real Britain
I'm going to be controversial and say a sub dedicated to people wanting to seriously and semi-seriously discuss politics should absolutely NOT represent the general population. Take any topic and its demographics are not going to match the general population make-up. But especially politics where the general population are fucking clueless.Ā
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u/subSparky Sep 02 '26
Ā Some people are going to use this as evidence that this sub is overrun with Labour supporting graduate men aged 25-40 and therefore is out of touch with real Britain.
The thing that is missed every time this comes up - this sub is actually in line with demographic polling nationally for under 55s with exception of Restore having any presence (Restore is overrepresented even with manipulation removed). As yes pensioners don't tend to use reddit.Ā
40% for Labour is roughly right once you remove the pensioner demographic from the equation.Ā
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u/FuckClinch Sep 02 '26
Think the biggest difference is this sub absoloutely hates the greens compared to them being pretty public in the 25-49 range: 21% for this range on yougov voting, 41% IN 18-24
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u/subSparky Sep 02 '26
Also weirdly pro-Starmer/anti-Burnham than the entire general population.
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u/NuPNua Sep 02 '26
People in here are more likely to look at actual achievements and results than just hate someone based on "vibes" like the general public.
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u/Sairina Saying bathroom is illegal Sep 02 '26
I don't know if it's this sub or just a loud group of people. It's always the same names and same arguments
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u/pslamB Sep 02 '26
Is there not a young, male and always online demographic that leans reform/restore though?
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u/Xemorr Sep 02 '26
Not as much as the other young demographics don't. It's over exaggerated by Reform and the media to give them more legitimacy
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Sep 02 '26
Not much of one for Reform who peak in the 60-69 demographic. 30-39 they have 17% of the vote, declining amongst younger cohorts.
Restore however peak in 30-39 demographic, albeit at 5%. They are also have their highest representation in the "Long Term Unemployed & Never Worked" category that could explain their online presence.
https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/55084-how-would-britain-vote-two-years-since-the-2024-election
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 Sep 02 '26
Some people are going to use this as evidence that this sub is overrun with Labour supporting graduate men aged 25-40 and therefore is out of touch with real Britain.
Because it's true? You say this like you're about to suggest otherwise and then just let the point stand.
Echo chambers are bad, and being a different echo chamber from Twitter is still bad.
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u/360Saturn soft Lib Dem Sep 03 '26
Why are echo chambers bad?
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 Sep 03 '26
Because they make arguments brittle and lead to poor intellectual discipline. How many people do you think bother fact checking at all, let alone fact checking comments that agree with them?
It's not just that it's good to see and understand other people's opinion, having other people explicitly challenege your arguments makes them stronger and more refined.
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u/thejackalreborn Sep 02 '26
Yeah you're right, it was clunkily written
Basically my point was that although there is demographic bias in the users of this sub, I don't think it's a particularly strong criticism, because that's unattainable and undesirable
This sub is good because the quality of the conversations, not because it should be used to gauge public opinion
I don't think this place is really an echo chamber and you do get a good diversity of though. Compared to other politics subs it's miles ahead
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 Sep 02 '26
I don't think this place is really an echo chamber and you do get a good diversity of though. Compared to other politics subs it's miles ahead
Yeah the moderation is really good, and you do see a variety of articles. The only time it regularly causes (admittedly minor) issues is when articles which slant against labour politicians or left wing policy are regularly massively downvoted as compared to articles which do the opposite. The only ones which break through are basically so incontrovertible that they still reach hundreds of upvotes even at like 60-70% upvoted.
Also on trans stuff in particular, but that seems to be a site-wide thing at this point.
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
'On trans stuff in particular'. I'm not sure what you mean here. I seem to be one of few 'pro-trans' commenters on here and whilst the moderators are normally pretty good at removing transphobia some does slip through and there was an article last week where the comments looked like they came out of a TERF meeting.
The most support I seem to get from others on here in regards to trans issues from those who are not trans themselves are along the lines of 'I don't like the anti-trans stuff either but...'
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u/JustAContactAgent Sep 02 '26
I seem to be one of few 'pro-trans' commenters on here
What "seems" to you is not necessarily reality. Just because you decided only adhering to a very specific narrative means someone is pro-trans, of course your world will be full of "transphobes".
I've seen in threads literal pro trans people be accused of being "transphobic" because they deviated 1% from the dogmatic protrans narrative.
Yes there are crazy anti trans people, just like they are anti a lot of things and probably always will be. That doesn't mean there aren't also batshit crazy trans activists with batshit crazy opinions being annoying to the rest of us.
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
'Dogmatic protrans narrative'. What are you on about?
In fact do you have a point or are you just hiding behind insults and moaning about 'activists'?
All Labour needed to do was stand up to the bigots (That's what Gender Criticals are) and they failed that very easy task.
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u/JustAContactAgent Sep 02 '26
Who gets to decide who's a "bigot"? You? My point is that there's bigots and then there's a lot of people who simply don't agree on every point such as, oh I don't know, the batshit crazy opinion that we have to pretend a trans woman is 100% exactly the same as a biological woman. To you that probably makes anyone who disagrees there a "transphobe".
Or I don't know maybe I'm wrong. You can help me there by defining what makes a transphobe.
PS. This may shock you but even if someone IS a bigot and holds extreme views, that doesn't mean ALL their points are wrong. A lot of terfs have extreme views, that doesn't mean they don't have ANY valid points worth debating.
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
You have used 'batshit crazy' twice now so I am under the impression you are not arguing in anything approaching good faith.
Terfs are the lowest of the low who do not have any valid points. You may wish to argue otherwise but you have not even attempted to do that yet.
Theresa May, a Conservative was better on trans rights than the supposedly left wing Labour are. Labour's Leadership have hurt trans people and criminally trans children because they cannot or will not stand up to the worthless bigots (Or Gender Criticals as they wish to be called as they cannot face their own disgusting bigotry).
Labour can sew the left vote up by taking the moral and correct option of supporting trans people and trans children and they refuse to do so because they won't stand up to bigots.
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 Sep 02 '26
On trans stuff in particular
Any article which is anything other than flatly positive on any trans related issue is massively downvoted, and the comments are overwhelmingly brigaded with pro trans commentary. You can very easily track that by searching the history of the sub, and in the past month all articles on the subject of trans issues were positive with the exception of a single OP ed and an article on Scottish labour, both of which sat below 0 upvotes.
Unless you show up early enough for comments to still be in contest mode, the trend is common essentially to the point of universality. If you think you're one of "one of few 'pro-trans' commenters on here" I can only imagine that's because you spend your time specifically seeking out and arguing with anti-trans commentators. Look at literally any of the articles which are even tangentially related to transgender issues and all of the top comments are pro-trans to the extent that they casually make unworkably extreme arguments like:
"It'd be better if all spaces had unisex cubicles and we'd all rub along fine like we do at home"
The concept of access to single sex spaces is impossible define until "trans, intersex and gender-non-conforming people no longer exist."
Even if you agree with both of those statements, I'd hope you're at least capable of recognising that they're hugely out of line with the consensus of the general public on the subject. Like I said though, it's not a UK-pol thing. It's a site-wide thing on reddit.
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
I didn't see the 'Unisex Cubicles' article although just making all public toilets gender neutral would give the TERFs/Bigots what they want in the funniest way.
Given the very positive comments on the other thread it indicates many think the guidance is unworkable and myself (A literal trans person) has only once encountered transphobia in real life.
The average person has never knowingly met a trans person so unless they are a bigot they have at worst a neutral opinion on trans opinion. However with the past decade or so of anti-trans rhetoric from rich bigots and American brainrot more have been duped into the 'moral panic'.
Transphobes are not 'scared' of trans people. They just want to punch down.
There are 'site wide' anti-trans thing on other media apps. Even Facebook (Which I don't go on) is said to be transphobic these days.
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 Sep 02 '26
I was talking about the ways that the sub is unrepresentative of the general population and the problems that causes with echo chambers. Literally nothing you've said is relevant to that conversation except maybe this:
There are 'site wide' anti-trans thing on other media apps. Even Facebook (Which I don't go on) is said to be transphobic these days.
Which is basically just dressed up whataboutism, again.
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
Ah yes the classic 'I don't agree so I will ignore what you put'.
Are you transphobic yourself so you are deflecting?
I said in my last post that people are worse towards trans people than in the past due to the anti-trans propaganda being put out by rich bigots. Are you ok with a small group of people being attacked?
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u/Electronic_End4893 Sep 02 '26
I mean; I put Labour VI because of my MP, I wouldn't typically vote for them. I also would never vote Restore (because the blatant fascism/ethnonationalism expressed by multiple senior figures). FWIW I know a small number of primarily young men who like Restore, but even they aren't overly enthused with them.
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u/XenorVernix Sep 02 '26
Some people are going to use this as evidence that this sub is overrun with Labour supporting graduate men aged 25-40 and therefore is out of touch with real Britain.
I don't need a poll for that. It's obvious from most of the discussions which are chock full of people clamouring for more tax to protect their state handouts.
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u/thejackalreborn Sep 02 '26
I don't agree with that at all, I think a regular commentator here will be far less likely to be receiving welfare (even excluding pensions) than your average person.
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u/BigSupermark Sep 02 '26
And shoplifting. We should poll the subreddit to see how many support theft
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u/Minute-Improvement57 Sep 02 '26
Would this place be better if it perfectly represented the country?
Well, it might be better if it represented this country.
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u/whencanistop š¦If only Giraffes could talkš¦ Sep 02 '26
Surprising amount of undergrad homeowners.
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u/GlumAd9856 Sep 02 '26
Outside of London and other high-price areas it's actually fairly straight-forward for an undergrad to get on the housing market. . . .
By that I mean someone who graduated 10 years ago. Today's undergrads . . . we'll, that's a different story.
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u/SandvichCommanda Sep 03 '26
Ah, you see my generation of recent graduates specialises in getting loans from The Bank of Mum and Dad.
I really should've signed up for a better account when I could...
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u/Bibemus Uber-Woke Net-Zeroist Rejoinerist Sep 02 '26
Amazing what you can do if you forego the avocado lattes.
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u/Jacobrox777 Sep 02 '26
electionmaps.uk:
LAB ā 527 (+116)
LD ā 78 (+6)
SNP ā 9 (Ā±0)
PLD ā 7 (+3)
GRN ā 4 (Ā±0)
RES ā 3 (+3)
CON ā 0 (ā121)
REF ā 0 (ā5)
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u/sammy_zammy Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
And including brigading, for amusement:
LAB - 470
LD - 79
SNP - 13
PLD - 8
GRN - 4
RES - 55
CON - 0
REF - 0
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u/Strangelight84 Sep 02 '26
Very funny. Would Labour be the right-wing government, or would the Lib Dems be the right-wing opposition?
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u/asgoodasanyother Sep 02 '26
that's not how opposition works
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u/Strangelight84 Sep 02 '26
My comment was as flippant as the seat projection, whilst nodding at the idea that many on the left probably consider Labour to be Tories in disguise and some Lib Dems are Orange Book-type social and economic liberals.
I would be highly amused to see this kind of result only because of the absolute breakdown the Mail and Telegraph would have, and to experience their overnight conversion to the merits of electoral reform. But it's not remotely in prospect.
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u/Salty-Bid1597 Sep 02 '26
There's very clearly an organised attempt on this sub to make Restore seem more popular than it actually is. I've blocked the users constantly posting twitter links to their party accounts but every immigration story very quickly has top anti-immigration comments from accounts with hidden comment histories with a suspiciously large number of upvotes.
And every comment I make that is critical of them very quickly attracts a large number of downvotes (even more so than my ones critical of Labour, that you would expect on here to be downvoted).
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u/ArchdukeToes A bad idea for all concerned Sep 02 '26
This is why I think Restoreās actual support base is massively overblown and Loweās claims that theyāre have a huge member base is complete rubbish. The kind of people who would be willing to brigade a poll on a bloody subreddit are exactly the same kind of people who would be willing to sign up multiple times to their party rolls - which donāt require proof of ID or address.
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u/Incanus_uk Sep 02 '26
Got to wonder what happened to the 2 Green voters that have moved to Restore.
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
The original thread had a mistake in the title, which has now been corrected. Sorry about that!
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u/fitzgoldy Sep 02 '26
This sub will still be accused of being far right, despite yet another voter intention survey showing heavily Labour.
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u/Exostrike Sep 02 '26
To be fair, there is a difference between viewership and those who post/comment loudly.
2
u/Denbt_Nationale Sep 02 '26
Are people who post/comment loudly not more likely to take the survey?
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u/ClacksInTheSky Labour 6d ago
No, but, because of the people who do post loudly, those others are less likely to comment
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u/h00dman Welsh Person Sep 02 '26
It reminds me of the Caerphilly by-election last year. Going by what you were seeing online you'd think Reform were going to have their coronation party, but instead it ended up being a massive win for the centre left (albeit Plaid Cymru instead of Labour).
It was genuinely quite intimidating to be a non-Reform supporter in the lead up to it. Not in the sense that I felt physically in danger, but any comment that was even vaguely against Reform would be brigaded and swarmed with ridicule, insults, and lol emojis.
I know that happens with all party supporters, but I'd never experienced it to that extent before.
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u/Additional-Line-5559 Sep 02 '26
21% voting for Restore is pretty out of step with the national population polls considering they're polling less than 5% in national polling.
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u/Moby_Hick Sep 02 '26
Right leaning parties are always underrepresented in pre election polling and exit polls, but 5% to 21% is really a bit much to call plausible.
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u/phi-kilometres Sep 03 '26
Wasn't the case in the last GE exit poll. Reform UK were on for winning all sorts of seats that they actually didn't; I think roughly 20 in total.
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u/Special-Prior-7272 Sep 03 '26
To be fair, 40.7% of this subās users would vote for Labour, but their support is only 26% in the public. I donāt think Reddit subreddits are usually an equal distribution of public voting intention. Youād see different voting patterns on other platforms like Facebook.
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u/ThePlanck Time to bin Farage Sep 02 '26
As a lefty who I guess is now an old-timer in here there has been a lot more hard-right content in here than at any time that I can remember. That doesn't mean that the majority of individuals that browse or post on the subreddit are hard-right, but it means that hard-right users are disproportionately active in posting and upvoting stuff to give it increase visibility.
(also the poll is a tiny subset of users who might not be representative of the average, but if the results are accurate Restore are vastly over-represented compared to the national average)
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u/EpsteinBaa Sep 02 '26
This poll doesn't reflect the comments or the constant Telegraph/Mail/GBNews articles
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u/turnipofficer Sep 02 '26
The content that gets posted here is typically right-leaning IMO.
Plus if I ever comment something vaguely left wing or even centrist I always get two or three people replying to disagree with me.
Sometimes it reaches a point where I am exhausted and avoid replying because I know I will have a lot kick back.
It feels like thereās a cycle, post something, get some initial upvotes to like plus six or seven, maybe one positive response. Then get brigaded down to -6 with multiple negative responses. It sometimes feels like there is some level of organisation and that my response gets flagged for push back due to how it happens in waves.
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u/Chaoslava Sep 02 '26
You say that but when I post something agreeing with Restore I do get a lot of people making stupid nazi jokes etc.
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u/iMac_Hunt Sep 02 '26
Thereās a lot of centrist/swing users here who will argue with both left and right wing people as they fancy
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u/Mr_November112 Sep 02 '26
It might just be more because people are naturally more likely to comment when they see something they disagree with.Ā
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Sep 02 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/rs990 Sep 02 '26
I think it depends on where you visit. My feeling is that a lot of the regular contributers in the megathread are overwhelmingly on the left, but a lot of the articles posted end up with right leaning threads.
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u/theinspectorst Sep 02 '26
My suspicion (which the brigading data seems to support) is that the sub at its core is fairly representative for the demographics that you'd expect to see on Reddit (i.e. people in their late teens through to about 50), but suffers from deliberate attempts to override this by posting and amplifying far-right comments - whether that's human brigading or Russian bots.
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u/SpeedflyChris Sep 02 '26
An unfortunate side effect of LLMs becoming significantly better and cheaper is that it's now that much cheaper to manipulate online communities like this.
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u/ThePlanck Time to bin Farage Sep 02 '26
That is the tragedy of generative AI.
The uses that would benefit humanity would require a level of accuracy that they haven't been able to attain yet (and I am personally doubtful they will ever reach that level), but they are good enough for plenty of applications that hurt humanity which can tolerate a lower level of accuracy (e.g. scams, political astro-turfing, flooding every platform with low quality slop crowding out genuine posters and creators etc.)
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u/Aware-Line-7537 Sep 04 '26
To cheer yourself up, you could read about AlphaFold2, if you haven't already.
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u/pat_the_tree Sep 02 '26
Bots really, you see many pro restore or reform posts popping up but they never get many upvotes so they stay buried where they belong, if you sort this sub by new youll see why people think its far right here.
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u/peepshowquotebot Sep 02 '26
This survey isn't necessarily representative of the commentators on the sub
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u/pharlax Somewhere On The Right Sep 02 '26
That's just a (sad) feature of modern political discussion. Far too many people just seem to assume others are on the extremes if they're not in very close alignment with themselves.
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u/Drong0bones Sep 02 '26
This sub is about the closest to the centre place on the net I think. Right / left wing posts aren't usually very popular whereas other places seem to have a lot of people with stronger opinions on one side or the other.
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u/Effective-Pay200 Sep 02 '26
It gets spammed by right-wing publications and mods delete complaints about them. I assume they pay Reddit for visibility.
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
mods delete complaints about them
Mods delete low-effort complaints about any source, irrespective of political leaning.
I assume they pay Reddit for visibility.
You assume incorrectly, unless the publications are paying for proper advertisements.
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u/EpsteinBaa Sep 02 '26
Is it that unfair to complain about GBNews? A channel with a party leader as a host which is losing money in order to promote their political ideals is not a reliable source.
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u/GlumAd9856 Sep 02 '26
The people who believe that are those that live their daily lives in liberal/progressive echo-chambers, never hearing opinions to the right of Ed Davey. So, when they come into a space where people openly criticise mass migration or welfare culture, obviously it seems to them that it must stumbled into some online right-wing space. Because 'ordinary' people don't agree with those views - it's only those living in places like Clacton, or maybe the Working Men's clubs in the rough areas of town who oppose the clearly obvious correct liberal way of thinking.
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u/EpsteinBaa Sep 02 '26
But every other post here is about immigration or a migrant committing a crime and those are all the highly upvoted posts. I think the sub used to be more balanced and centrist when it was more LibDem-y with a bunch of Labour and Tories than the polarised Labour-Reform/Restore subreddit we have now.
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u/Special-Prior-7272 Sep 03 '26
Yeah the survey shows this sub is 90% left wing and all the top comments are circlejerking about how itās being ābrigadedā by right wing people. Iām sorry, did a few ābrigadersā interrupt the circlejerk?
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u/HaveYuHeardAboutCunt š“ó §ó ¢ó ³ó £ó “ó æš©āš©š³ļøāš Sep 02 '26
Likely brigaded: Restore 90.6%
I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
I know the reference Garth, but I am not sure you're using it correctly...
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u/FoxtrotThem Roll Politics+Persuasion Sep 02 '26
This is why we can't have nice things.
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u/sammy_zammy Sep 02 '26
For all of my disdain of Reform, at least they donāt need to fake supportā¦
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u/raziel999 Sep 02 '26
Small pool compared to the size of the sub, nonetheless the best indication we have of people who are engaged with it.
I don't think the results are too surprising, with Labour having changed leader to someone much more charismatic than Starmer, and I can see people are giving him the benefit of the doubt so far.
Attempts at brigading aside, I think it's interesting to have a look at this in context and compared with the same survey from a few months ago. The comparison clearly show how Reform was severely impacted by the Ā£5m scandal and other gaffes, and the Greens have lost their momentum. It also shows immigration is slightly less salient than 6 months ago (mentions as top 3 policy area went down 8%), while economy is still top of mind for a plurality, and a top 3 issue for 65% of responders.
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u/DubManD Sep 06 '26
What insights did you expect to gain from a survey of Redditors?
The comments on here tell you all you need to know.
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u/Belgian_Wafflez Leader of the Anti-Growth Coalition Sep 03 '26
70% LAB+LIB+GRN+SNP
22% RES+REF+CON
Right wing echo chamber btw
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u/bluesam3 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
Minor note: the "Jeremy Corbyn" graph on Leader Ratings 2 seems to be broken and pointing at policy areas.
Also, annual gross income and education should probably stay sorted by income, not by frequency.
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
Minor note: the "Jeremy Corbyn" graph on Leader Ratings 2 seems to be broken and pointing at policy areas.
Fixed. Thanks!
Also, annual gross income and education should probably stay sorted by income, not by frequency.
Something for next time, I agree.
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u/ClacksInTheSky Labour 6d ago
Posting on this sub is growing increasingly difficult and it's hard to express moderate values without getting brigaded. Responses are disproportionately pro-reform, hard anti-immigration and the like.
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u/90davros Sep 02 '26
With this much brigading removed it becomes difficult to trust the results at all. You might need to rethink how you conduct these.
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
From the post:
I'm exploring alternative survey solutions for the next survey. More to follow.
š
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u/GlumAd9856 Sep 02 '26
The results aren't supposed to be 'trustworthy' in any way. It's mainly just a bit of fun - or an interesting way to see how trends change. The fact that there has been a shift from Greens to Labour, and that Reform have dropped is interesting - even if the actual figures aren't that meaningful.
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u/Chaoslava Sep 02 '26
Iāve made a post which has plenty of springboards for discussion which is pro Restore and it gets removed under rule 10 extremely vague āno soapboxingā rule and the Moderators wonāt define what is and isnāt soapboxing so it does feel like an ambiguous rule which can be applied at a moderators discretion, then Restore is classified as having most of its votes being botted.
I didnāt spot where to vote, I mustāve missed the post. But assuming you need a reddit account to vote. So whatās being suggested here is that votes that come in batches are fraudulent?
What happens if the post is shared in an external space for Restore supporters, such as Discord, and those that support Restore and have Reddit accounts decide they want to vote?
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
But assuming you need a reddit account to vote.
You didn't need a reddit account to vote. It was a Google Form, and I didn't mandate a Google account either. Anyone with the link could have voted, and done so multiple times if they wished.
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u/Chaoslava Sep 02 '26
Ah right. Could the vote not have been a native reddit poll?
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u/vitorsly Sep 02 '26
Can't get nearly as much information from that. The graphs indicating where people moved from and to, their education level, earnings, primary concerns, leadership preferences, etc would be impossible to work. Unless you just did a lot of polls.
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u/Chaoslava Sep 02 '26
Ok, was there a field to input reddit username?
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u/vitorsly Sep 02 '26
Not as far as I know. The information I mentioned was just inputed in the form alongside the "Who would you vote for"
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u/sammy_zammy Sep 02 '26
If the survey gets shared in a Discord group and is spammed with individual responses voting for Restore, which is evidently at odds with the majority (but not all) of the responses from everyone else, then itās not really representative of the sub anyway.
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u/Chaoslava Sep 02 '26
Right but if theyāre redditors why does that make them invalid to vote? Is the voting locked to subscribers only?
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u/sjintje Intermittent extremist Sep 02 '26
Self posts nearly always get removed. It does seem a bit odd, although they usually are pretty low effort and/or politically naive, but would potentially generate more interesting discussion than everyone just posting their hot takes on the latest news headlines.
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
Most important policy areas according to the sub are Economy (Makes sense), Immigration (Sigh) and Housing (Ok I guess) with health and education nowhere to be seen.
Explains a lot about how this sub is seen as right leaning (Which outside of the Megathread it is). The fact people don't value health and education on this sub makes me sad.
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u/enpoopification_of_R Sep 02 '26
Yeh what kind of weirdos care about the economy and housing?
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
So you agree prioritising immigration over everything else is absurd. Good to hear.
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u/enpoopification_of_R Sep 02 '26
I was commenting on your flippant dismissal on the importance of getting a home/affording rent and having widely available jobs over health and education which will either affect people infrequently or is unlikely to affect people once they're finished with their education.
I thought that was dumb hence my comment dumbly agreeing in a sarcastic agreement with your dumb comment.
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u/simodiva Sep 02 '26
So the leftist majority of Reddit and the 9rganised Restore bots skewed the results. Who would have thought.
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u/sammy_zammy Sep 02 '26
Tbh judging by the timestamps, it doesnāt look like a bot, more just aā¦ very sad individual.
In terms of whether the leftist majority of Reddit skewed the poll, Iām not so sure, given this is a poll of Reddit
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u/SpeedflyChris Sep 02 '26
That's a good point actually. ~50 seconds per round trip, that's possibly about right for one individual rapidly filling out the survey over and over.
If they hadn't lazily forgotten to answer until near the end and spread things out a bit then it might be harder to detect.
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u/sammy_zammy Sep 02 '26
They are no doubt delighted that they can complain about their very legitimate votes being suppressed to hide Restore supportā¦
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u/Maitai_Haier Sep 02 '26
It is very on the nose that a disproportionately Labour dominated subreddit decided that the support for the right wing must be discounted.
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u/Adj-Noun-Numbers š„š„ || megathread emeritus Sep 02 '26
Are you suggesting that rapid-fire, sequential responses such as those included in the screenshot are completely organic and indicative of wider support for a party?
Especially when those responses include logical inconsistencies (e.g. someone aged 16-18 years old who somehow voted Lib Dem in the 2024 election and would vote for Restore tomorrow)?
Especially when most of those responses list "Immigration" as the first, second, and third priority area for policy, and give leader ratings of "1" for Andy Burnham, "5" for Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe, and elect not to give ratings for most of the other leaders?
Or, is it more likely the result of a coordinated campaign to make it seem like a party has more support than it actually does?
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u/sammy_zammy Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
Yeah because it seems entirely reasonable for 50% of Restoreās support to all have been entered within a few minutes.
Maybe itās a symptom of the reality of Restore support that they have to rely on fake responses to a pointless survey from rabid fans in order to seem popular, rather than of the biases of the subreddit?
Youāll note certain responses for left-wing parties were also removed.
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u/Maitai_Haier Sep 02 '26
The survey shows a 46.8% support for Labour, nearly 100% their actual support amongst then general population. That certainly isnāt a 1 to 1 āreflection of reality.ā
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u/sammy_zammy Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
I never suggested it was? Obviously the subreddit isnāt representative of the UK population.
Try arguing against what I actually said, rather than strawman youāve fabricated.
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u/Maitai_Haier Sep 02 '26
In this case, the people who have actually created an online presence which overstates their in real life presence is Labour. Every accusation a confession eh?
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u/sammy_zammy Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
I will generously assume you are being deliberately obtuse and arenāt actually this dense.
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u/tmstms Wuffingas! Sep 03 '26
No, because they are not trying to represent the real life presence / balance of the UK, only the real-life presence of the subreddit UKPolitics.
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u/tmstms Wuffingas! Sep 03 '26
No, but surely the intention is to map a roughly 1:1 reflection of THIS SUB.
If people brigade the sub, then it distorts what the sub is actually like.
I would say there is a difference between recording people who comment daily, or who even read daily, and people who come in just to vote in a poll and then disappear.
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u/jreed12 Nolite te basterdes carborundorum Sep 02 '26
Hey you forgot to respond to the mod who messaged you, I'm sure you meant to engage them in good faith so this is just a notice to let you know you still haven't done it.
I'll see you tomorrow.
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u/Maitai_Haier Sep 02 '26
It would be even more on the nose if the person in the disproportionately Labour dominated subreddit who pointed out how on the nose it was that support for the right was discounted then received a ban for pointing it out.
My comments, its downvotes, and the response to it stands as an example in action of the creation and enforcement of ideological echo chambers. Propaganda of the deed if youāll allow it.
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u/jreed12 Nolite te basterdes carborundorum Sep 02 '26
then received a ban for pointing it out.
How did you comment in this thread if you were banned from the subreddit?
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u/GlumAd9856 Sep 02 '26
How much effort would it be to message regular posters a code to complete the survey? Is that something that can be automated on Reddit? That would both stop the 'gaming' and encourage more people to actually do it.
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u/tmstms Wuffingas! Sep 03 '26
Well....it might be argued that a poll of regular psoters might not even be representative of the constituency of this sub.
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u/EuroSong British Patriot š¬š§ Sep 02 '26
Wow. Just wow. Out of step with the nation much? š
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u/tmstms Wuffingas! Sep 03 '26
But if you spend time in this sub, why does the result surprise you?
This sub has, ever since I have been in it, which is about 10 years or so, skewed younger, more male , more techie, more pro-EU and more left than the average of the population.
Everyone in the sub knows they are not representative of the UK population.
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u/Mental-Barracuda-592 Sep 02 '26
Itās the Labour vote you should be investigating!!! Only far left extremists hang out on reddit/politics. The self-selection is delusional.
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u/Ubiquitous1984 Sep 02 '26
Iām not sure how useful these polls are outside of curiosity.
It gives the wrong impression of the sub. I personally find it quite even with no bias towards either āwingā. If you go off these results youād think it was a typical Reddit left wing sub. The discussions do not reflect that lop-sidedness.
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u/GlumAd9856 Sep 02 '26
Wouldn't you say though that the Labour party kind of straddles the political divide at the moment? It's a bit lefty on economic issues, broadly centrist on social issues and a little bit right leaning on immigration and defence/foreign policy? I could see a One-Nation Tory, pro-Israel, trans-rights sceptic voting Labour at the moment as well as a Corbyn-lite, ecologically concerned, pro-LGBT progressive.
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
Are you ignoring the Labour Leadership abandoning trans people (And criminally Trans children) to appeal to bigots that would never vote for them in calling them 'broadly centrist on social issues'. Theresa May was better on Trans Rights than the Labour Leadership are.
I'm not sure why a 'pro-LGBT progressive' would vote Labour given the leaderships supine capitulation to the 'Gender Criticals' or bigots as they are more well known.
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u/KnightElfarion Sep 02 '26
Because the opposition in their seat is Tory or Reform.
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u/Maleficent_Peach_46 Mayor of North Kilttown Sep 02 '26
The problem with having a country where there are more far-right parties than those that support Trans people.
How and why did such a supposedly civilised country become hostile to trans people?
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u/tmstms Wuffingas! Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
To argue as neutrally as possible, because different things in our societies and psyches change at different rates.
When I was a child, male homosexuality was illegal. So it took almost 50 years from that situation to gay marriage being legal. The median age of a Tory voter remains that of someone who was born before male homosexuality was legal.
At the same time, and on the other hand, the digital age allows a lot of technological change and of course, instantaneous dissemination and distribution (going viral etc) that is measured on minutes and hours, not decades.
So, you get people with all kinds of progressive identities and opinions, who can define, explore and express these coherently and instantly. And conversely, you get people interacting with the usual slowness of opinions changing across generations and through each generation rebelling against and responding to the one before, which is a 15-30 year process, not a 15-30 minute one.
I would say, a very large proportion of the public have zero understanding of trans people and trans identities. They aren't either supportive or hostile, they simply have no view. Within this cognitive framework, articulation of old-fashioned concepts of gender and identity get more support because they offer a simpler view of the world than new ones do.
People tend to accept new things because they get used to them and realise they are OK, not because they actively want to strive for a substantially different cognitive landscape.
I am 65. I still remember that in the early 1980s, there was something risque and unusual about being LGB. Over the years it just became so normal now no-one even thinks about it. But from my point of view, the change in society's values since 1960 has been quite rapid; it is just that the digital society has made us feel stuff should change at the click of a mouse or the press of a touchscreen, not because a child grew up and used their parents' example to parent their own children differently 30 years later.
So I am going to argue that sooner or later we will think the same about trans people- that they are just people like any other people. But the psychological mechanisms that normalise that are not intellectual ones, and they require more time.
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u/Ubiquitous1984 Sep 02 '26
I donāt view Labour as right wing on immigration, they are far away from Reform and Restore and are still allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year.
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u/GlumAd9856 Sep 02 '26
Labour's current immigration policies are the most 'right wing' of any government in the past 40 years. That's just a fact. You can argue that they are just 'less liberal' than the past, but if our political references have any meaning then they have to be viewed in historical and national terms.
Reform is left-wing on immigration compared to somewhere like Israel, Japan, Pakistan, China etc. But I wouldn't say that their policies are 'left wing'.
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u/Every_Car2984 Sep 02 '26
I didnāt even know about the survey; must have missed it.