Ukip collapse allows Tories to overpower Labour in the North
THE Prime Minister has made huge advances in Labour’s Northern heartlands following a collapse in support for Ukip, a new poll has found.
The Conservatives are now more popular in almost every region of the UK, putting Mrs May on course to secure a landslide election victory.
The poll by Yougov discovered that the Tories are now level-pegging with Labour in the North West on 42 per cent of the vote, up from 31 per cent at the last election.
The most significant breakthrough is in the North East, where in the 2015 election Labour enjoyed a 22-point lead over the Tories.
Mr Corbyn’s lead has now narrowed to just two points in a region previously considered unwinnable for the Tories, with the Conservatives on 40 per cent and Labour on 42 per cent.
The Tories have benefited from a huge slump in support for Ukip with Paul Nuttall’s party having seen its backing more than halve in some parts of the country.
The survey’s findings were disclosed as a separate poll found that almost one in four people are now “re-leavers”, those who originally did not want Britain to leave the EU but now support Brexit.
Anthony Wells, director of political and social research at Yougov, said: “Labour are doing worse in the places where the Conservative Party are aiming
to win seats. They are 18 or 19 points behind in the polls. The difference is degrees of awfulness.
“There isn’t at the moment a good outcome on the table, it is just how awful is it.”
The Yougov poll of more than 14,000 voters found that there are now only two regions – the North East and London – where Labour is ahead of the Tories.
In Yorkshire and the Humber the Conservatives are now polling ahead of Labour despite trailing by six points in 2015.
The Tories also appear to have built on the strong support they received in 2015 in the East Midlands with the party now on 54 per cent compared to 44 per cent previously. The Tories have also surged in the West Midlands and the East of England with Labour and Ukip both losing support respectively.
The Conservatives are also on course for success in Scotland, support for the party north of the border having leapt from 15 per cent in 2015 to 28 per cent.
The popularity of the SNP has taken a hit, dropping from 50 per cent to 41 while Labour support has dropped from 24 to 18.
A similar collapse has been experienced by Ukip with the party dipping in the North West from 14 per cent in 2015 to just six per cent in 2017.
That drop is replicated across much of the country as support for Mr Nuttall’s party plummets.
In the South East, backing for the party has fallen from 15 per cent to six per cent, while in Wales the voters saying they intend to support Ukip has dropped from 14 per cent to 4 per cent.
Labour is ailing across the entire country, support falling in every region apart from the South West and South East where the party has traditionally performed poorly.
In Wales, where polls have already predicted that the Tories could win numerous Labour seats, support for Labour has dropped from 37 to 35 while Tory popularity has surged from 27 points to 41 points.
London is one of the few regions of the UK where levels of support for the two main parties has remained broadly the same as it was in 2015.
However, the Liberal Democrats have received a big increase in support with the polls suggesting support for the party has almost doubled from eight per cent to 14. The latest regional data comes after another poll, also undertaken by Yougov, found that the battlelines created by the European Union referendum result now appear to have shifted.
The UK voted to leave the EU by a margin of 52 per cent to 48 per cent with the debate over Brexit since having been framed using those numbers.
But now it appears that many Remain voters are not opposed to Brexit and want the Government to make the best of it.
Some 45 per cent of respondents said they supported Brexit while 22 per cent said they do not and that they believe the Government should ignore the result of the referendum. But a further 23 per cent, dubbed the “re-leavers”, said that while they did not support Britain leaving the EU they now believe the Government has a
‘The Tories are fishing in a massive lake while the other parties are casting their rods into a pond’
duty to carry out the wishes of the majority.
That means a total of 68 per cent of respondents said they back Brexit. The numbers represent more good news for the Tories with Mrs May able to target the 68 per cent during the election while other anti-brexit parties will have to compete with each other for the votes of the 22 per cent.
Marcus Roberts, Yougov’s director of international projects, said: “The rise of the ‘re-leavers’ means that the Conservatives are fishing in a massive lake, while the other parties are casting their rods into a pond.
“When discussing Brexit and its implications in the campaign the electorate is not two pools of voters split almost down the middle 52/48.
“Instead, it is one massive lake made up of Leave and re-leave voters and one much smaller Remain pond.”