WITH the prospect of a third General Election in four years on the horizon, opinion polls currently suggest Boris Johnson could be in line for a majority Government.
UK wide research surveys have suggested the Conservatives have gained ground since Johnson took over the Tory leadership in the summer and became Prime Minister – and in doing so, strengthened the appeal of his party among Leave voters and diminished that of the Brexit Party.
However, while the Tories fortunes have appeared to be on the rise, polls have pointed to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour being rather stuck in a rut.
Meanwhile, the LibDems – who came second in the UK at May’s European elections – behind the Brexit Party – have hung onto their summer gains.
The latest Britain Elects poll tracker has put the Conservatives roughly 10 points clear of Labour. The Tories edged up 0.3 points over the past week to 35%, while Labour has remained static at 25%. Jo Swinson’s LibDems are on 18% and the Brexit Party on 11%.
A YouGov poll for The Times at the weekend put Tory support slightly higher and Labour support slightly lower. It found 36% of people planned to support the Conservatives, while only 23% would back Labour, 18% the LibDems and 12% Brexit Party.
The Financial Times yesterday reported that the odds of an outright Tory majority have risen in the past week and now stand at 49%, according to betting market numbers crunched by Jordan Rochester at Nomura.
However, as many pundits have pointed out Theresa May’s ill-fated election illustrates the volatile nature of voters’ behaviour.
Despite being 21 points ahead of Corbyn’s party when she called the election, the then PM lost her majority in June 2017 – with the Tories taking 42% of the vote and Labour 40%.
The result forced the Conservatives to seek a confidence and supply arrangement with Arlene Foster’s DUP to prop up their minority Government.
But with the latest opinion polls giving the Tories a double-digit lead, Labour’s former general secretary Iain McNicol has warned the party is unlikely to perform as well in a future campaign as it did in 2017, when Corbyn was considered to have outperformed expectations.
“The next election is not going to be the same as the last election,” he told Sky News recently, adding that ‘peak Corbyn’ had been two years ago.
“At that point Jeremy was fresh and Jeremy was new so there was bit of energy that was there … I do worry where we are now, the Conservatives won’t make the same mistakes that they made last time round.”
In Scotland, the polls have pointed to a very different outcome for the Tories. An analysis of a YouGov survey for The Times last month by Sir John Curtice suggested they could lose ten of their 13 MPs, including Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, taking 20% of the vote. Curtice forecasted a landslide win for the SNP with Nicola Sturgeon’s party netting 51 seats on 43% of the vote, winning an extra 16 MPs than in 2017. It also suggested David Mundell, Jack’s predecessor who was sacked by Johnson, John Lamont and Andrew Bowie were the Tories most likely to retain their seats.
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The YouGov poll also brought bad news for Scottish Labour suggesting Richard Leonard’s party would hold onto just one of his seven MPs on 15% of the vote.
According to the YouGov findings, Ian Murray, the Corbyn critic who represents Edinburgh South, would return to being the party’s sole Scottish representative in the Commons as was the case following the 2015 General Election. The survey pointed to the LibDems holding onto four seats on 12% of the vote.
Commenting at the time Professor Curtice said: “With perhaps as many as 51 seats, the SNP could dominate Scotland’s representation at Westminster just as they did after the 2015 election. Meanwhile, both Labour and Conservative representation could be reduced to little more than a rump.”
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