Did 80% of Britain vote ‘against Labour’ at the general election?

The claim that “around 80% of Britain voted against Labour” has been circulating on social media following the UK’s general election result. One post making the claim on X (formerly Twitter) has more than 1,200 shares.   

But it’s not quite true that 80% “of Britain” voted against Labour—if by that we mean they voted for parties other than Labour. It is true, however, to say 80% of those registered to vote didn’t vote for Labour.  

The 80% figure is based on how many people on the electoral roll in the UK—not in Great Britain or the UK as a whole—did not vote for the party. But not everyone is on the electoral roll and not everyone on the electoral roll actually voted. It’s also possible that some people on the electoral roll may have spoiled their ballots, which means their vote doesn't count (we could not see any data on how many ballots were spoiled in the July election at the time of writing). 

By our calculations, about 30% of the total population of Great Britain voted for parties other than Labour, which was 66% of all those who actually voted.

You can find more number crunching on the election results in our analysis here. 

What percentage of people in Britain voted “against Labour”?

Labour won 34% of all votes cast in the UK (and under the UK’s ‘First Past the Post’ electoral system, 63% of all seats in the House of Commons). By the same token, 66% of voters voted for parties other than Labour and therefore “against Labour”.

But the size of the electoral roll is not the same as the whole population, because not all eligible people have registered and many people are not eligible because they’re too young, for example. What’s more, not everyone on the electoral roll actually voted. 

Voter turnout across the UK was around 60%, which is the proportion of those on the electoral roll who actually cast a vote on 4 July, and the total registered electorate was 48.2 million. 

This means around 29 million people across the UK voted in total, with approximately 19 million people voting for parties other than Labour, and around 9.7 million people voting for Labour.

The total population of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) in mid-2022 was around 65.7 million people. This means around 30% of people in Great Britain voted for parties other than, or “against”, Labour. 

The Labour party does not field candidates in Northern Ireland and so all votes for the party were in England, Wales and Scotland, which means it is reasonable to use the population of Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland) rather than the entire United Kingdom.

Where does the 80% figure come from?

The 80% figure seems to be the percentage of people on the UK electoral roll who did not vote for Labour. 

It has been calculated based on 9.7 million people voting for Labour, out of 48.2 million people on the electoral roll. This gives figures of around 20% of registered voters voting for Labour, and around 80% voting for parties other than Labour. 

Therefore, this includes people registered on the electoral roll who did not cast a vote at all, who voted for other parties, or who may have spoiled their ballot.