Why are the Tories polling behind the Lib Dems?
The Lib Dems have polled above the Conservatives for the first time, a new survey has found, dealing a blow to the so-called natural party of government.
The new poll means the Conservatives have slumped to fourth place, a downgrade one party source said had “put a pit in my stomach” and could be “the last straw” for the party.
“Falling behind the Lib Dems is horrific,” they added.
This poll follows earlier polling by City AM and Freshwater Strategy which put the Lib Dems only four points behind the Tories.
Kemi’s fault?
Andrew Hindmoor, professor of politics at Sheffield University and expert in UK politics told City AM: “it’s pretty unprecedented” for the Conservatives to “drop as far as they have for as long as they have,” and poll below the Lib Dems.
But he added that “it’s not unprecedented for the Conservatives to lose office after a long period of government and then tank in the polls for a long period.”
City AM’s polling indicated that Badenoch’s approval dropped from -12 last month, to -15 in May, indicating her personal rating could be dragging down approval of the wider party.
But Hindmoor suggested there was no clear link between the party’s leader and how well it polled, citing historical patterns.
He said that it’s likely “any Conservative Party leader at the moment would struggle,” harking back to the late 1990s when the Conservatives last lost an election while sitting in government. “She’s pretty unlucky at the moment.”
“I think they may well ditch her, because the Conservative Party ditches leaders pretty quickly. But I don’t necessarily think that the polling results say anything particularly about her,” Hindmoor added.
Bad PR
An anonymous Conservative source attributed the collapse in support to the Tories not “doing enough to get our voice out there and when we do it looks unserious, unprofessional, desperate and seems unremorseful for how badly we mucked up.”
“A serious cull of the party needs to happen ASAP,” they said, adding that they “would burn the likes of Liz Truss at the stake and kick her out the party. Public execution. Start there, show we are changing and understand how badly we mucked up.”
“Stop with knee-jerk, desperate reactions like [the response to the] EU [deal] yesterday to try and play to the public. Professionalism must be the aim of the game.”
Steve Akehurst, director of Persuasion UK, a think tank which tracks public opinion, said the Tory brand is “damaged after government, but also they have basically zero definition over Reform – and Reform are getting a ton of media coverage, especially after the [local elections.]”
Lib Dems celebrate
A Lib Dem source told City AM that the party is “on track to overtake [the Conservatives] in the next General Election.”
They attribute the parties’ reversal in fates to the Conservative party being “full of dinosaurs spreading around Boris Johnson social media posts like it’s still 2016,” adding that the Lib Dems are the “only party with a plan to fix health and social care and the only party with the backbone to say we should stand up to Donald Trump.”
Most of the rise in Lib Dem votes comes from Labour, Akehurst said, adding: “they’re bleeding hugely to the Lib Dems.”
Polling from YouGov on Tuesday shows that 12 per cent of Labour voters in the 2024 general election defected to the Lib Dems (or 17 per cent, if you take out those who responded “don’t know”), which Akehurst underscores as a “record high,” and “just a bit nuts.”
More significant, however, Akehurst said, is the fact that 28 per cent of 2024 Tory voters defected to Reform – also a record high.
Reform lurking
Hindmoor said that it’s not just the Conservatives who are under threat from the rise of Reform. “My reading of the recent [local] elections is that Labor was pretty lucky that it didn’t have as many seats up for grabs, and so Reform ended up taking more of a chunk out of the Conservative vote than it might otherwise have done.”
For Hindmoor, “most Conservative MPs nowadays feel a lot closer to Reform than they would do, for example, to an old party grandee, like David Cameron.”
Akehurst attributed the Tory drop to an anti-Labour bloc of voters flocking to the most powerful party opposing Labour. “The anti-Labour vote is making itself more efficient, it’s falling in behind the best party to kick Labour, and for many people that’s Reform.”
“The same thing benefitted Labour in the last [Parliamentary election] as anti-Tory voters piled in behind them,” Akehurst added, indicating that while it’s not an uncommon phenomenon, “what’s remarkable is how quickly it’s happened.”
“We are seeing something we are seeing in other countries or already have seen, namely, a radical right party eating a centre right party and becoming the main challenger on the right,” Akehurst said, invoking the example of elections in France, Italy, and the US, where far-right leaders subsumed centre-right factions.