The UK’s opposition Labour Party leads Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives in a raft of seats historically dominated by the ruling party, a poll showed.
(Bloomberg) — The UK’s opposition Labour Party leads Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives in a raft of seats historically dominated by the ruling party, a poll showed.
Labour polled 41% in the 42 so-called Blue Wall seats — won by the Tories at the past three general elections — according to the survey of 1,100 voters by Redfield & Wilton Strategies. The Conservatives trailed on 34%.
The gap has narrowed by three percentage points since the pollster’s last survey of Blue Wall seats, in January, but it still paints a gloomy picture for Sunak. He has less than two years in which to revive Tory fortunes battered by two changes of prime minister last year, soaring inflation and a record squeeze on living standards.
If replicated in a general election — which must be held by Jan. 2025 at the latest — many seats once considered safe wins for the Tories would be in danger of falling to the opposition, according to Redfield & Wilton. They include Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab’s constituency of Esher & Walton and former Tory Leader Iain Duncan Smith’s seat of Chingford & Wood Green.
Redfield & Wilton’s latest national poll offers an even more damning verdict from voters on the Tories. That survey, issued on Monday, put Labour on 48% and the Tories on 27%.
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