This week, Public First held a focus group for the New Statesman with 10 working-class voters in the Tudor Rose pub in Sittingbourne. 

Sittingbourne and Sheppey is one of the kinds of constituency that will shape the electoral map over the next 5 years. It overwhelmingly backed Brexit in 2016 and the Conservatives in 2019, but like many seats along the Kent and Essex coast, was a close three-way marginal this July. We spoke to a pivotal group of voters—who all switched from Conservatives to Labour at the last election. 

The group expressed both a deep sense of disappointment with the new Government, but more profoundly a sense of strong disillusionment with the British political system in general. However, despite Starmer’s unpopularity within the group, all 10 voters struggled to see themselves ever going back to the Conservatives. Moreover, even in this group which felt very strongly about immigration, at least half the group did not view Farage and Reform as a credible alternative.

You can read our headline findings from the focus group here, and the full article in the New Statesman here.

The focus group also featured in the New Statesman podcast.