LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has opened up a 14 percentage point lead over the opposition Labour Party as Johnson’s tougher stance on Brexit wins back supporters, according to a poll published on Wednesday. Johnson, a Brexiteer who won the premiership a month ago, has vowed to lead the United Kingdom out of the European Union on October 31 with or without a deal. His predecessor, Theresa May, delayed Brexit after failing to ratify a divorce deal.
With talk of an election swirling in London, an online Kantar poll showed 42 per cent of voters would now vote for the Conservatives, up from 25 per cent in May, and 28 per cent for Labour, down from 34 per cent in May, when the last comparable poll was taken. The poll showed 15 per cent would vote for the Liberal Democrats, unchanged since May, 5 per cent for the Brexit Party, down from 10 per cent in May, and 5 per cent for the Scottish National Party, unchanged.
“There has been a significant shift,” Craig Watkins, the UK CEO of Kantar Public, said. “We have a new Conservative prime minister who has taken a very clear stance on handling the Brexit negotiation and Brexit itself and that messaging seems to be cutting through to the public,” he added. The online poll of 1,133 people was carried out August 15-19. More than three years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU, it is still unclear on what terms — or indeed whether — the bloc’s second largest economy will leave the club it joined in 1973.
Amid the political turmoil in London, little is clear. But many politicians expect an election within months. “Boris Johnson has taken a hard stance on Brexit and that message cuts across what the Brexit Party and UKIP are saying so it looks like his stance is reducing their vote,” Watkins said. “The main shift has been that Conservatives have gone up, Labour down and the Brexit Party and UKIP very much markedly down,” he added. — Reuters
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