Rishi Sunak has been warned that the Budget now offers him his final chance to rescue the Conservative Party after the latest weekly tracker poll showed that his party’s support is in freefall again after a tumultuous week.
The Techne UK tracker poll for Express.co.uk revealed that Labour’s lead has hit 21 points again having dropped to 18 earlier this year.
It comes after the Tories divided strongly over Sunak’s decision to suspend Lee Anderson for claiming that Labour’s London Mayor has allowed Islamists to take control of London’s streets.
Anderson has refused to apologise and has been supported by many of his colleagues with some seeing his suspension as a direct attack on the former Labour-supporting working-class voters who switched to the Tories after Brexit in the 2017 and 2019 elections.
Anderson himself had been a Labour councillor who defected to the Conservatives and had become a champion of the right.
This week Conservative MPs have also been divided over whether the party can somehow turn things around with most now preparing for a historically bad defeat.
One MP told Express.co.uk: “We are f***ed! There is nothing now that can be done.”
But another MP said: “We could see some of comeback if there are tax cuts in the Budget. But it is unlikely that they [Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt] will do nearly enough.”
The poll put Labour unchanged on 44 percent, the Tories down 1 on 23 percent, Lib Dems and Reform UK both unchanged on 10 percent and Greens up 1 on 7 percent.
If the poll was the result of a general election Electoral Calculus predicts the Tories would have their worst ever result in their 346-year-history on 77 seats while Labour would have a majority of 320.
Techne UK chief executive Michela Morizzo agreed with the assessment that the Budget next week offers Sunak his final chance to save the Tories and his government.
She said: “With complexity at every turn for Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Government, and the week before the Chancellor’s Spring Budget on March 6, our tracker poll brings further bad news for the Prime Minister.
“With Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party holding firm on 44 percent of national vote share the Conservatives drop again 1 point of national vote share – down to 23 percent. As such Labour’s lead grows to a dominant 21 points.
“At the moment, whatever the Prime Minister tries, the Labour lead remains unmoving at around the 20 point mark – the question now will be if the Budget next week can shift the dial? Time will tell.”
Techne UK polled 1,632 people with Labour ahead in every age, economic and education category.
Most worrying for the Tories is the collapse of the 2019 vote which Boris Johnson mustered to get them an 80-seat majority.
A mere 43 percent of Tory 2019 voters would now back the party while a third have switched to Labour (17 percent) and Reform (16 percent).
One in 10 2019 Tory voters would not vote at all at the next election while 8 percent are uncertain.
Voter disillusionment is so bad though that 25 percent said they would not go to the polls in an election.
