UK polls point to ‘electoral extinction’ for Conservatives

Three British opinion polls released late on Saturday presented a grim picture for prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, and one pollster warned that the party faced “electoral extinction” in July 4th′s general election.

The polls come just over halfway through the election campaign, after a week in which both the Conservatives and Labour set out their manifestos, and shortly before voters begin to receive postal ballots.

Sunak surprised many in his own party by announcing an early election on May 22nd, against widespread expectations that he would wait until later in the year to allow more time for living standards to recover after the highest inflation in 40 years.

Market research company Savanta found 46 per cent support for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, up two points on the previous poll five days earlier, while support for the Conservatives dropped four points to 21 per cent. The poll was conducted from June 12th to June 14th for the Sunday Telegraph.

[ Sunak offers more tax cuts in Conservative election manifesto as Labour leads in polls ]

Labour's 25-point lead was the largest since the premiership of Sunak's predecessor, Liz Truss, whose tax cut plans prompted investors to dump British government bonds, pushing up interest rates and forcing a Bank of England intervention.

“Our research suggests that this election could be nothing short of electoral extinction for the Conservative Party,” Chris Hopkins, political research director at Savanta, said.

A separate poll by Survation, published by the Sunday Times, predicted the Conservatives could end up with just 72 seats in the 650-member House of Commons - the lowest in their nearly 200-year history - while Labour would win 456 seats.

The poll was conducted from May 31st to June 13th.

In percentage terms, the Survation poll had Labour on 40 per cent and the Conservatives on 24 per cent, while former Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party - a right-wing challenger to the Conservatives - was on 12 per cent.

A third poll, by Opinium for Sunday’s Observer and conducted from June 12th to June 14th, also showed Labour on 40 per cent, the Conservatives on 23 per cent and Reform on 14 per cent, with the two largest parties yielding ground to smaller rivals. – Reuters

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024