The Conservative Party under Theresa May has sunk to fifth place in EU Parliament election polls, behind Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and even the Green Party.
The Tory collapse has been stunning, with a party that has billed itself as “the natural party of government”, and claims to be the longest-lived active political party in the world now polling at just 10 per cent, according to a new YouGov survey.
The weeks-old Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage, meanwhile, is dominating the race on 34 per cent — more than the Tories with their 10 per cent, the opposition Labour party with 16 per cent, and the anti-Brexit Change UK (CUK) party combined.
The failure of the CUK party to break through bodes extremely poorly for the electoral prospects of the “Remain Resistance” led by the likes of Tony Blair, given it was supposed to serve as a Remainer answer to the Brexit Party.
The party had some significant advantages over Farage’s party, which has put candidates outside the world of politics, including entrepreneurs, members of the fishing community, and decorated war veterans, front and centre, while CUK enjoyed a parliamentary base of former Labour and Tory MPs with relatively high profiles and good media contacts from the get-go.
The better known Liberal Democrats, who are also campaigning on an anti-Brexit platform — with the somewhat contentious assistance of EU politicians like Guy Verhofstadt — are faring somewhat better, but have not garnered even half the public support mustered by Mr Farage, sitting at 15 per cent.
Perhaps even more troubling, polling for general election voting intentions shows the many people appear to plan on backing Mr Farage at in national as well as European elections — with the Brexit Party currently outpointing the Conservatives in a ComRes poll.
If translated into action at the ballot box, the poll results would see the Brexit Party claim some 49 seats in the House of Commons — and Remainer party chairman Brandon Lewis ousted from his seat, along with other Tory heavyweights including serving members of the Cabinet and even leadership hopeful Boris Johnson, a leading but so far ineffectual Brexiteer.