A top Tory has said the party must depose Rishi Sunak and “give the country back” to Boris Johnson, after new polling emerged showing the Prime Minister’s popularity plummeting.
When Mr Sunak became Prime Minister in October 2022, he had popularity of -19, slightly more popular than Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer currently is.
Eleven months on, however, and Mr Sunak has plunged down to -41 – his lowest ever level as Prime Minister.
He is still more popular than the Conservative Party as a whole, which garners net popularity of -48, however it appears the Tory Party is dragging Mr Sunak down, rather than him raising his party up.
Mr Sunak’s popularity is now lower than Boris Johnson’s when he left power last summer.
YouGov, which also conducted the Rishi Sunak polling, recorded a score of -40 on Mr Johnson’s final days in office.
One of Mr Johnson’s most vocal allies, Lord Cruddas, has now warned the Tory Party “This is what happens if you ignore the electorate, the members of the Conservative Party and the manifesto that the government was elected on”.
“In any other country it would be called a coup d’etat and Rishi is the leader of the anti democratic process that led to him being PM.
Lord Cruddas has called for the Tories to ditch Mr Sunak and return to Mr Johnson ahead of the next election in light of the damning poll.
“The Conservative Party needs to wake up and give the country back the leader they voted for otherwise we will be out of power for a generation and the electorate will never forgive us.”
Luke Tryl, director of More in Common, said the Tories had clearly hoped that their party’s brand would be “pulled upwards to Sunak’s higher favourability ratings”.
“The opposite has happened with Sunak’s favourability converging downwards since the spring to meet the his party brand in the -40s.”
39 percent of 2019 Tory voters dislike both the Tory party and Mr Sunak, compared to just 38 percent who like both.
Just 19 percent of 2019 Labour voters dislike both Labour and Sir Keir Starmer.
Following the Summer parliamentary recess, Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street is expected to launch a number of more biting attack ads directed at Labour and Sir Keir Starmer, hoping to beef up their political operation in the run up to next year’s General Election.
A number of new political advisors were brought in to help their new spin operation.
