A new polling report has revealed that the Tories are at their lowest-ever point under Rishi Sunak since winning a landslide with Boris Johnson as leader in 2019.
The J.L. Partners analysis entitled “Implosion in Blue” has concluded that Sunak has lost more Conservative voters than Liz Truss did at the height of the mini-Budget crisis.
According to former Downing Street pollster James Johnson, a co-founder of J.L. Partners Polls, the biggest threat to the Conservatives is now coming from Reform UK who are taking three times as many voters from them as the Lib Dems.
Just 59 percent of 2019 Tories are now supporting the Conservatives, compared to 63 percent under Truss and 74 percent last summer.
Even more shockingly it claims, the Conservatives have lost 500,000 supporters since the party conference in October.
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The J.L. Partners report has combined the findings of Britain’s nine main polling houses – Deltapoll, More in Common, Omnisis, Opinium, People Polling, Redfield & Wilton, Techne UK (used by Express.co.uk) and YouGov.
According to the findings, Reform are hitting the Tories hardest in Wales, London, the south of England and the north of England.
Mr Tice’s party are also now becoming a major factor in pulling Conservative votes in the Midlands too.
The report noted: “It is clear that the increases in the South of England, Wales and the North of England are driving the increase in Reform vote share.
“With the major parties changing little over the past year, Reform UK’s increase has been the ‘star’ in the changing electoral landscape that faces us at the next general election.”
Meanwhile, it suggests that Labour is being boosted mainly by picking up a significant number of Liberal Democrat 2019 voters, pushing the Lib Dem performance down nationally.
The findings by a former Downing Street pollster are already worrying Tory backbenchers who have flagged up the report privately in Whatsapp chats.
It puts further pressure on the Prime Minister who is still facing the prospect of a challenge to his leadership after sacking Suella Braverman in the reshuffle and following an Autumn Statement which appeared to have little impact on the polls.
One Tory MP said that “emergency legislation” to try to get the Rwanda deportation flights off the ground to tackle illegal immigration could be “the trigger point” for MPs to submit letters asking for a vote of confidence.
But Richard Tice has said that the poll proves his party is now “an existential threat for the Conservatives.”
He added: “We said we want to replace them and we mean it!”
