Labour support slips in Wales – new poll
SUPPORT for Welsh Labour at a notional National Assembly election has dropped significantly over the past four months, according to a new poll.
In first-past-the-post constituency seats it is now backed by 39% of voters – four points down on the previous YouGov poll for ITV Wales and Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre last November.
But the opposition is split, mainly between the Conservatives on 28% and Plaid Cymru on 22%.
Professor Roger Awan-Scully, of the Wales Governance Centre, said: “As with all recent polls, we see Labour in a substantial lead. But their support has dipped significantly since November.”
Despite the drop in support for Labour, only one seat would change hands on a uniform swing.
LABOUR’S support has slipped in Wales, but the party remains comfortably ahead of its rivals, according to a new poll.
Carried out by YouGov for ITV Wales and Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre, the poll puts Labour on 46% at a Westminster election (down one point from last November), the Conservatives on 33% (up two points), Plaid Cymru 11% (no change), Liberal Democrats 4% (down one point), Ukip 4% (up one point), and others 3% (no change).
Professor Roger Awan-Scully of the Wales Governance Centre said: “It is self-evident that these numbers show only small changes from our previous poll, and all of them are well within the polling ‘margin of error’. Nonetheless, the Conservatives will be pleased to have edged up a couple of points; Plaid Cymru will also be fairly satisfied that their three-point rise in our last poll is now confirmed.
“Using the standard method, of computing uniform national swings since the last general election, the findings from this poll suggest that absolutely no seats would change hands. All parties are projected to retain all the seats that they won in June 2017.”
Such an outcome would give Labour 28 seats, the Conservatives six and Plaid Cymru four.
Labour’s share of the vote would drop further in a National Assembly election. In first-past-the-post constituencies it would get 39% (down four points), the Conservatives would get 28% (up two points), Plaid Cymru 22% (up three points), Ukip 5% (up 1%), the Liberal Democrats 4% (down one point) and others 2% (down two points).
Professor Awan-Scully said: “As with all recent polls, we see Labour in a substantial lead. But their support has dipped significantly since November.
“However, our last Barometer poll saw Labour’s support fall significantly for Westminster yet remain unchanged for the Assembly constituency ballot: this suggests that the broad picture is one of Labour’s support levels edging downwards in recent months.
“The Conservatives and Plaid Cymru both see their support lift modestly, but encouragingly, while there remains absolutely no signs of a Liberal Democrat recovery.”
On these figures, only one seat would change hands, with the Conservatives narrowly winning Vale of Glamorgan from Labour.
On the regional ballot, Labour would get 36% of the vote (down two points), the Conservatives would be on 27% (no change), Plaid Cymru 21% (up three points), Ukip 6% (two points up), the Liberal Democrats 4% (one point down) and others 7% (no change).
Such results would leave Labour with 28 seats (one down from 2016), the Conservatives 17 seats (up six seats), Plaid Cymru 13 seats (up one seat), Ukip one seat (down six seats) and the Liberal Democrats one seat (no change).
Professor Awan-Scully said: “Overall, this poll shows Labour continuing to be in a strong position in Wales. But it is not quite as strong as it was during the latter half of 2017. Both for Westminster and the National Assembly, their support has dipped by several points from the highs that were reached by the end of the general election campaign.
“Yet Welsh Labour’s saving grace always seems to be the absence of a single strong challenger. This poll offers some encouragement for Plaid Cymru after a difficult few months internally for that party, and perhaps even more so for the Conservatives: whatever difficulties the UK Government is having managing Brexit are certainly not yet impacting negatively on the party’s fortunes in Wales.
“Ukip’s support levels, though marginally up in this poll, are much lower than in the last Assembly election; while for the Liberal Democrats, the electoral horizon remains bleak.
Meanwhile public opinion in Wales has moved against holding another referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU.
The poll also found that while 39% were in favour of a second referendum – down five points since November – 49% were against the idea (up six points). The remainder didn’t know (down one point). Responses to a second question showed that if another referendum were to take place, 45% would vote Remain, 44% would vote Leave, 6% would not vote (no change) and 6% didn’t know (down three points).
Prof Awan-Scully said: “Hitherto, public opinion in Wales had been clearly opposed to another vote on Brexit. But both the September and November Barometer polls saw shifts of several percentage points towards the idea of another referendum. By November, this meant that the people of Wales were split pretty much down the middle on the idea.
“Any apparent trend towards support for a second referendum has gone clearly into reverse. Although the gap between support and oppose, at 10 percentage points, is not huge, there is nonetheless once again clear water between the two sides.”
On the question of voting intention in a second referendum, Prof Awan-Scully said: “[Things] continue to be very close between Remain and Leave, and the five-point Remain lead in the last poll – which had equalled the largest Remain lead in any poll since the referendum – now shrinks once more to virtually nothing.”
Prof Awan-Scully concluded: “Lots of people who follow the Brexit saga seem to believe that there will be significant changes in public attitudes at some point. That may still prove to be the case. But we can see precious few signs of it yet.”
The poll had a sample of 1015 Welsh adults and was carried out by YouGov from March 12-15.