Labour lead for the first time in over a year as Johnson faces challenges from both the left and the right
A poll conducted by Opinium places Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour as the nation’s most popular party, just 10 months after the Tories romped to their largest victory since 1987.
Source: UK Parliament on Flickr
The poll conducted for the Observer has given Labour their first polling breakthrough since July 2019, when Boris Johnson had just become prime minister and Tories were suffering from the Brexit Party riding high in the polls.
Since then, Boris Johnson has obtained a lead in 236 consecutive polls, a feat only broken when Labour managed to pull level with the Conservative Party in a separate Opinium poll in late August.
However, Sir Keir Starmer’s successful leadership bid has changed the fortunes of Labour and the party is now experiencing its highest levels of support since November 2018.
Of the 2,002 respondents across the United Kingdom, 42 per cent stated that they would vote for the Labour Party - the highest figure seen since March 2018. Just 39 per cent of respondents expressed an intention to opt for a Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party.
According to the Guardian, Adam Drummond, the associate director of Opinium, has said that “While this is the first time since Boris Johnson became prime minister that Labour has been ahead of the Conservatives on vote share, Keir Starmer has had better approval ratings than the prime minister for some time, and the two leaders have tended to draw on the question of who would be the better prime minister. Now the Labour leader has pulled ahead on that measure as well.”
Despite their recent change in leader, this poll did not suggest that the Liberal Democrats have managed to eat into the vote of Britain’s two largest parties, placing Sir Ed Davey’s party on just 5 per cent. An additional 4 per cent of respondents revealed they would support the Greens.
However, it will make for good reading for Scottish nationalists, as the poll suggests that many Scottish voters have not been dissuaded by Nicola Sturgeon’s recent Covid-induced campus catastrophe.
Support for the SNP remains stable at 6 per cent in the UK and is up 10 per cent on the result last December, at 55 per cent, amongst the electorate in Scotland.
Initially, the pandemic proved electorally beneficial for the prime minister. In April, Opinium placed support for the Tories at 55 per cent - with a lead of 26 per cent over Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
The “rally around the flag” effect has, nevertheless, appeared to waver amidst government failings. The Cummings controversy, free school meals fiasco and the Dover dinghy debacle has undoubtedly taken its toll on support for Boris Johnson.
It would appear that Labour’s line against the government that has specifically challenged the prime minister’s “competence” has cut through to voters.
The poll will be one of many woes felt in Number 10. In recent weeks, Boris Johnson has faced significant challenges within the parliamentary Tory party, to such an extent that his majority of 80 does not seem that large at all.
While the prime minister has so far managed to fend off his critics to the controversial Internal Market Bill, the Telegraph has revealed that more than 40 Tory backbenchers will rebel against the government to force parliamentary votes on the introduction of future lockdown measures.
This, in turn, has led to growing support for the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak. Tory MPs increasingly see Sunak as the man concerned with the economy, whereas Number 10 is regarded as trying to block attempts to raise revenue - including the end to triple locks on pensions.
Sunak was rewarded for his stand-in performances in last December’s seven-way leadership debates when he replaced Sajid Javid in Number 11 during Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle in February and has long been touted as a future stalwart in the party.
In 2015, the former Prime Minister David Cameron parachuted Sunak into the safe seat of Richmond in Yorkshire, replacing the then leader of the house, William Hague. However, the following year Sunak handed his leader a major blow.
Not only did a freshly faced Sunak opt to campaign for the UK to leave the European Union but the future chancellor even refused to attend a meeting in Number 10 where the prime minister hoped to sway Sunak to back remain.
In contrast to Johnson, Sunak is riding high in the polls, with the Telegraph reporting that the chancellor is the most popular resident of Number 11 since former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey.
Ipsos MORI’s head of political research, Gideon Skinner, added that while public satisfaction with the prime minister and the government are drifting down, Rishi Sunak’s scores are “moving in the opposite direction with a near 20-point boost since March.”
Pollsters even suggest that Sunak currently holds a significant lead, of around eight percentage points, over Starmer when respondents are asked which man would potentially make the better prime minister.
On Wednesday, the chancellor unveiled the Treasury’s winter economic plan, in which he told MPs that “Our lives can no longer be put on hold. We must learn to live with it, and live without fear.”
The Times understands that chattering Conservatives are beginning to unite behind Sunak. One MP told the paper “my constituents see Rishi as the future PM. It will become a problem when the polls start slipping. Until that point Boris will ride it.”
The backbencher added: “The difference between Rishi and Boris is that one of them has a philosophy and the other has a focus group. Rishi is a small-business, long-standing Brexit supporter, he’s a financially coherent conservative. Boris has Dom [Cummings] who tells him what to do on the basis of a focus group.”
Pressure is mounting on the prime minister but given that a week is a long time in politics, Johnson is fortunate that he has over 185 until the electorate give their verdict on his premiership.
This article is published as part of The Commons Man series, written by Pi Media columnist Jack Walters.