Tory support hits lowest level since general election wipeout of 1997, polls suggest
THERESA MAY’S failure to deliver Brexit has caused the Conservatives to haemorrhage voter support, with the Tories now polling at a similar level to John Major in 1997, polls suggest.
They showed support for the Conservatives had crashed eight points in a month as Brexiteer voters seemed to swing behind Nigel Farage’s new party and Ukip.
Polling conducted by BMG Research in March had the Tories on 37 per cent, but the latest data for April showed the party had slumped to 29 per cent.
That is similar to the run-up to the 1997 election, in which the party won just 165 seats and secured 31 per cent of the vote as Tony Blair’s New Labour crushed the Conservatives.
The April data was the first to formally include Mr Farage’s Brexit Party and the newly formed pro-remain Change UK group of disaffected former Labour and Tory MPS.
The impact of including the new
parties in the poll suggests the Tories would be hit harder than Labour at an election, with the latter polling at 31 per cent in March and April.
Some six per cent of voters said they would vote for the Brexit Party if there was a general election today while seven per cent said they would back Ukip, a one per cent increase on the previous month.
Change UK was backed by eight per cent of voters, building on support for the Independent Group, which was recorded at five per cent in March, the increase apparently coming from a slight drop in support for the Liberal Democrats.
Prof Sir John Curtice, the political scientist, said the Government’s handling of Brexit was likely to be responsible for the dip in Tory support but added Labour had slipped, too. “The last time the two parties were just over 30 per cent was before the 2015 election,” he said.
“The evidence is fairly clear that support the Tories gained in 2017 from Ukip has gone back to Ukip and Nigel Farage.”
Sir John said that the Tories and Labour would be “at risk of losing ground both to the socially liberal, proremain end and pro-brexit end” of the political spectrum at a future general election.
He added: “Failure to deliver Brexit undermines the crucial advantage that the Tories had in 2017: that they were the best bet for delivering Brexit.”