Labour lead over Tories shrinks to joint narrowest margin since Rishi Sunak became PM
Labour’s opinion poll lead over the Conservatives has shrunk to its joint narrowest margin since Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister.
The latest Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey put Sir Keir Starmer’s party on 42 per cent, unchanged from the previous week, and the Tories on 30 per cent, up two points.
This is one of the smallest leads recorded by the firm since Mr Sunak entered Downing Street, which suggests he has at least partially turned the Conservatives’ reputation around.
At the height of the political and economic turmoil of Liz Truss’s time in No 10, Redfield & Wilton had recorded a 36-point Labour lead – the joint-largest for any party with any company since the height of Sir Tony Blair’s popularity in October 1997.
The gap between Sir Keir and Mr Sunak's parties was last at 12 points in a Redfield & Wilton poll conducted on April 16. At the time, Nicola Sturgeon's political downfall was in motion, while the Government marked 25 years of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement following the successful passage of the Prime Minister's revised EU deal.
When voters who do not know how they would vote at the next general election are included, Labour’s lead falls to 11 percentage points.
However, the figures imply there is some way to go for the Conservatives in winning back the coalition of voters that delivered them an 80-seat majority at the last election in 2019.
While 87 per cent of those who supported Labour under Jeremy Corbyn would still do so under Sir Keir, only 62 per cent of those who backed the Tories in 2019 say they would do so again.
In the same poll, the Liberal Democrats are on 13 per cent, up two points, while Richard Tice’s Reform UK is on 5 per cent and the Green Party and the SNP both polled at 4 per cent.
Three fifths (59 per cent) of voters cite the economy as one of the three most important issues that would determine how they would vote in a general election amid ongoing cost-of-living pressures.
Second and third were healthcare (55 per cent) and immigration (30 per cent), meaning the public’s priorities appear to chime with Rishi Sunak’s "five pledges" – which are to grow the economy, reduce debt, halve inflation, cut NHS waiting lists and stop small boat arrivals.
Labour gained hundreds of seats at the local elections earlier this month, but analysis of the vote share has suggested Sir Keir would not win enough MPs to form a majority government if the public’s voting patterns were replicated nationally.
Only one third of respondents to the Redfield & Wilton poll say that a Labour majority is the most likely outcome of a general election if it was to be held in the next six months, while a further 28 per cent expect a minority government led by one of the two major parties.
