Public prefers Starmer to Sunak, poll shows

Voters in more than three quarters of parliamentary seats would prefer Labour leader to incumbent as PM

SIR KEIR STARMER would be preferred to Rishi Sunak as prime minister by voters in more than three quarters of parliamentary seats, a survey has found.

The Labour leader comes top in 483 seats in England, Scotland and Wales, while Mr Sunak prevailed in just 139.

The Yougov poll suggests the Conservative strategy of running a presidential-style election campaign by framing it as a head to head between the two men would be a mistake.

Mr Sunak does not even beat Sir Keir in all of the constituencies the Conservatives are forecast to win, suggesting he is a drag on the party’s chances rather than its biggest asset. In the Prime Minister’s own constituency more people answered “not sure” than backed Mr Sunak when they were asked who would make the better premier. The only ray of hope for Mr Sunak and his supporters is that almost half of all voters say they are unsure which of the two men would make the best prime minister, suggesting millions of people are not convinced by Sir Keir, either.

It is further bad news for the Prime Minister as he tries to quell a backbench rebellion over his flagship Rwanda policy to deal with illegal immigration, which has already undermined his authority and caused deep party splits.

Some Tory MPS have held discussions about the possibility of replacing Mr Sunak before the election, though they are currently in a small minority.

Tory strategists have for months been insisting that their best chance of winning the election is to play up the importance of leadership in order to make it a head to head between Mr Sunak and Sir Keir.

But where Mr Sunak was outperforming his party a year ago, the opposite is now true. In 559 seats in Great Britain support for the Tories is higher than support for Mr Sunak. The Prime Minister outperforms his party in only 73 seats. In contrast, in November 2022 an Ipsos poll found that 47 per cent of voters said they liked Mr Sunak, compared with a figure of 26 per cent for his party.

As The Daily Telegraph reported earlier this week, the same survey of 14,000 people forecast a landslide win for Labour at the next general election, with a 120-seat majority for Sir Keir and a net loss of 196 seats for the Tories compared to their result in 2019.

The poll also showed widespread support for a much tougher version of the Rwanda legislation.

Voters were asked who would make the best prime minister between Mr Sunak and Sir Keir. Just 21 per cent of the public chose the incumbent, with 32 per cent preferring the Labour leader and 47 per cent saying they were not sure.

The results were then analysed using the Multilevel Regression and Poststratification (MRP) method, enabling Yougov to break them down by individual constituency. Sir Keir gained more support than Mr Sunak in 78 per cent of constituencies, with Mr Sunak preferred to him in 22 per cent.

Across the North and the Midlands, where the Tories won dozens of “Red Wall” Labour seats under Boris Johnson in 2019, Sir Keir fares even better, winning in 83 per cent of seats. In the South and London the Labour leader comes out top in 66 per cent of seats.

In the vast majority of constituencies, “not sure” was the most common answer, but in 74 constituencies Sir Keir was the top answer. Mr Sunak was not the top answer in any constituency.

In the newly-created constituency of Richmond and Northallerton, which will be contested by Mr Sunak in the next election, only 29.4 per cent of voters think he will make the best prime minister, with 44 per cent saying they were not sure and 25.8 per cent preferring Sir Keir. In contrast, Sir Keir convincingly wins in his own constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, with the backing of 48 per cent of voters compared with 15 per cent for Mr Sunak and the rest saying they were not sure. Northern Ireland was not surveyed for the poll.

The survey found that if an election was held now, the Conservatives would win just 169 seats and Labour would sweep to power with 385.

The only ray of hope for Mr Sunak is that almost half are unsure who would make the better prime minister’