British voters are picking a new government today (Thursday, 4 July) in a parliamentary election that is widely expected to bring the Labour Party to power.

Labour looks set to receive a landslide majority, besting even the efforts of the Blair government in 1997.

But why are people voting Labour? Well, a new poll from YouGov has shed light on the real reasons why people are backing Sir Keir Starmer and co, and it's not as obvious as you might think.

YouGov said: "As we stand on the cusp of the 2024 general election, YouGov has been asking voters their main reason for backing their party of choice.

"Over the course of this election YouGov has used our new AI-powered language model to track which news stories have been achieving the greatest cut through with the general public, which we have now turned to the task of uncovering voter motivations.

"During late June, we asked more than 3,500 Britons who said they intended to vote Labour what the one main or biggest reason for them doing so was. Respondents were asked an open question and answered in their own words, which our AI-powered language model has subsequently categorised into the themes below.

"The answer is resounding – by far the most common response is “to get the Tories out”, which 48% of expectant Labour voters gave. Even the second most common answer option – which scored a distant 13% – echoes the sentiment, with this group of Labour voters saying their top motivation is that “the country needs a change”."

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Users on X, formerly known as Twitter, were quick to share their shock at these findings.

One person said: "Agree with their policies" - 5%. That is astonishing. Just utterly incredible."

Another replied: "Voting is a game now. You can’t scroll Twitter or FB for 2 minutes without there being a poll of some sort. Saturday night telly is full of voting for some clown or other. I think some have forgotten that some votes are more important than others."

"It's going to go wrong quickly if Labour don't make massive tangible improvements. Broad but shallow support isn't the way forward," some else commented .