The petition should worry the Conservatives, not Labour

This is another symptom of the disunited right.

More than two and a quarter million people have signed a petition calling for a general election. This doesn’t mean anything in real terms for Keir Starmer, but it is worthwhile to look at where these signatures are coming from: not population centres, nor cities but rural, shire England.

Look at North Yorkshire on the map above – deep red. Look at Lincolnshire – the reddest it’ll ever be. Ditto Essex. There has been plenty of consternation at the verification process for the petition. The website asks you to provide a postcode to sign, but it doesn’t require any proof of address. So who is to say that the entire list of signatories isn’t just overrun with Americans inspired by Elon Musk? (The owner of X shared the petition and wrote: “The people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state.”) There will be some element of that happening here. But the fact that the numbers are concentrated across rural, disconnected seats suggests that the presence of foreign signatures is not distorting the picture too much.

The number of signatures trends the number of Reform voters well. This was the case across the weekend, before the petition achieved prominence; and it remains the case even though the petition has been supported by more people.

This is a Reform petition. It does not correlate with Conservative support (and nor should Conservative activists be excitedly measuring up their re-election suits). While undoubtedly anti-Labour, this is not pro-Conservative. The petition is a symptom of the growing politics of “neither red nor blue”.

The only activists clamouring for an immediate rerun of a general election are the ones not serious about governing (I’m looking at you too, Remainers). But if enough Reform voters are happy to wear the Conservative brand at the next election to seriously threaten Labour then their impact could be significant. This kind of squeeze messaging is hit and miss – especially when your voters are apathetic and indifferent, as Kamala Harris learned to her disadvantage earlier this month.

Unlike Ukip, Reform is not fading into irrelevance after the election. It’s polling 18-20 per cent, and it’s advancing in council by-elections (including in Scotland). The party is third nationally but in several seats it is second to Labour. The petition might spook the Conservatives – a suggestion, perhaps, that they might not win these voters back unless they out-Reform Reform.

Nigel Farage needs moments like these. It keeps his “coalition” on side. His brand of politics is loud and it renders the Conservatives impotent in seats where Reform is the insurgent option. The right remains disunited.

Labour doesn’t need to worry. The disunited right is good for a centre-left party in a first-past-the-post system. But the radicalisation of voters – as they move further from the mainstream – will make the country harder to talk to. Labour needs to recognise that.