The Great British Breakdown

Introduction

Onward and Merlin Strategy have together conducted polling to investigate the extent to which Conservative, Labour, and Reform voters trust important UK institutions, from the police and the BBC to the NHS to local government. We looked at trust in three important categories of institutions: law and order institutions, like the Criminal Justice System; democratic political institutions, like political parties; and apolitical national institutions, like the Monarchy. 

With some variation, we find that Labour voters are more likely to express higher levels of trust in institutions in all three of these categories, followed by Conservative voters. We find that Reform voters are consistently and significantly less trusting of institutions in all three of these categories than either Conservative or Labour voters. 

We also report on the extent to which people who do not intend to vote trust important UK institutions, and find that their level of trust in institutions in all three categories is low. In all charts below, ‘trust’ together refers to those who reported trusting an institution ‘a lot’ and ‘a quite a bit’.

Law and order

Chart 1. Trust in law and order institutions by Conservative, Labour and Reform voting intention.

As shown by Chart 1 above, those intending to vote Labour (hereafter ‘Labour voters’) are overall most likely to say they have trust in law and order institutions and those intending to vote Reform (hereafter ‘Reform voters’) are least likely to have trust in such institutions. 

Focusing in on the police, the institution that offers the most visible manifestation of law and order in most people’s lives, 71% of Labour voters say they have a lot or quite a bit of trust in the police. 58% of those intending to vote Conservative (hereafter Conservative voters’) say they do, but less than half of Reform voters say the same (43%). 

Of all the law and order institutions we looked at, the most likely to win voters’ trust across all three voter groups is the military. Clear majorities of Conservative (77%), Labour (73%) and Reform (70%) voters report they have a lot or quite a bit of trust in the military. 

The least likely law and order institution to win voters’ trust is the Criminal Justice System. 63% of Labour voters and 47% of Conservative voters say they trust the Criminal Justice System a lot or quite a bit, but only 31% of Reform voters say the same. In fact, a plurality of 35% of Reform voters say they have no trust at all in the Criminal Justice System.

Democratic political institutions

Chart 2. Trust in democratic political institutions by Conservative, Labour and Reform voting intention.

As can be seen in Chart 2 above, Labour voters are most likely to have trust in democratic political institutions across the three voter groups. Labour voters are significantly more likely than Conservative or Reform voters to report higher levels of trust in MPs, political parties, the Government, politicians, and Local Government, than Conservative or Reform voters. Reform voters are the least likely to trust in these institutions. 

Overall, local government is the most trusted form democratic institution across the three voter groups, and the most likely to win the trust of Reform voters (25%). But while 66% of Labour voters say they trust the Government a lot or quite a lot, only 34% of Conservative and 16% of Reform voters say the same. Across every democratic political institution we looked at, less than a third of Reform voters report having a lot or quite a bit of trust in any of them.

National apolitical institutions

Chart 3. Trust in national apolitical institutions by Conservative, Labour and Reform voting intention.

We looked at Conservative, Labour, and Reform voters’ level of trust in three national apolitical institutions: the BBC; the Monarchy; and the NHS. 

As Chart 3 shows, the highest reported level of trust across all three groups is in the NHS, with majorities of Conservative, Labour, and Reform voters (72%, 81% and 61% respectively) saying that they trust the NHS a lot or quite a bit. The second most trusted institution out of the three is the Monarchy, again with majorities across all three voter groups expressing high levels of trust. 

Across all three voter groups, the BBC is the least trusted institution, though 71% of Labour voters report high levels of trust in it. Only 50% of Conservative voters and 23% of Reform voters say they trust the BBC a lot or quite a bit.

Low levels of institutional trust among those who will not vote

Finally, our results also highlight the extraordinarily low levels of trust that people who do not intend to vote have in many important UK institutions as can be seen in Chart X below. This indicates an important relationship between voters’ distrust in institutions and their disengagement from civic participation.

Chart 4. Trust in institutions by Reform voting intention and intention not to vote.

Conclusion

Our polling reveals very clear differences in the extent to which those intending to vote for the three most popular political parties trust the institutions that underpin the rule of law and British public and political life.