PM May’s lead down as her campaign struggles
LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May’s once formidable lead has been eroded to a slender advantage, an opinion poll indicated on Friday as her campaign was dealt a blow when one of her candidates was charged with electoral fraud.
With less than a week before polling day on Thursday, May’s Conservatives now lead the opposition Labour Party by just five percentage points, down from 15 just over two weeks ago, according to the survey from Ipsos MORI.
The poll put the Conservatives on 45 per cent, down four points from a comparable survey on May 18, with Labour up 6 points to 40 per cent.
“It is clear that on contact with the voters, Mrs May is not going down well and she is losing ground in particular amongst middle aged voters and female voters,” Ben Page, Chief Executive of Ipsos MORI, said.
Page said that Labour’s share of the vote included many younger voters who had not voted before.
“Even with all those young people who say they are going to vote and may not, Mrs May should still win a majority so I wouldn’t sell your pounds yet,” Page said.
The findings echo other recent polls which show May’s once commanding lead of more than 20 points when she called the campaign being whittled away, meaning she might no longer win the landslide she hoped.
A projection by polling company YouGov on Friday even put May on track to win only 313 seats — 13 short of the 326 seats needed for a majority in parliament.
A failure to win the June 8 election with a large majority would weaken May just as formal Brexit talks are due to begin while the loss of her majority would pitch British politics into turmoil.
While sterling has weakened against the dollar as the election race tightens, it still remains about 3 cents above where it was trading at the start of the campaign on April 18.
However, in a further blow to the Conservatives on Friday, one of its candidates who beat leading Brexit figure Nigel Farage in the 2015 parliamentary election, was charged with breaking expenses rules during that campaign.
Craig Mackinlay, 50, who is standing for re-election as the member of parliament for South Thanet in southeastern England, was charged with making false claims about his spending, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
His election agent Nathan Gray, 28, and aide Marion Little, 62 were also charged.
A Conservative spokesman said the allegations were “unfounded” and there needed to be an overhaul of election laws, but the timing, just six days before Britons vote, adds to the party’s problems.
“The Conservative Party continues to believe that these allegations are unfounded, Craig Mackinlay is innocent until proven guilty and he remains our candidate,” May told BBC Scotland’s First Minister Nicola television on Friday. Sturgeon said while May was no longer
May, who won the top job in the certain of increasing her parliamentary political chaos following the shock majority, she added she was sceptical June 23 Brexit vote, had hoped the about suggestions the Conservatives election would strengthen her hand would lose their current slim majority. ahead of Brexit negotiations, and the “The most likely outcome here is party was expected to take advantage a Tory (Conservative) victory, but a of the apparent weakness and disarray Tory victory no longer certain of an of its main rival. increased majority,” she told BBC
However, Labour leader Corbyn, radio. a 68-year-old socialist peace She said if there was a hung campaigner, has been pulling in big parliament, her pro-independence crowds at rallies across the country, Scottish National Party (SNP) would brushing off warnings from opponents consider backing a minority Labour in his own party that he would lead administration. them to electoral disaster. “If parliamentary arithmetic
The Ipsos MORI poll found May’s allowed it, I would want the SNP to personal ratings had fallen, although be part of a progressive alternative to she still held a 15-point lead over a Conservative government, not as Corbyn over who would make the a coalition, but on an issue by issue better prime minister. basis,” Sturgeon said.
Pollsters, who universally got However, if the latest polls are it wrong before the last election in wrong — and they have previously 2015, showed support for May and underestimated Conservative support the Conservatives falling after she — and May wins a sizeable victory, was forced to backtrack on one of she will axe current finance minister her most striking election pledges to Philip Hammond and replace him make elderly people pay more for their with interior minister Amber Rudd,
reported.—the social care, which opponents dubbed a Daily Telegraph “dementia tax”. Reuters