A poll has revealed that if Prime Minister Boris Johnson delays Brexit and there is a snap General Election, the Brexit Party would gain more votes than the Conservative Party.
ComRes analysed the poll of 2,004 adults, conducted between July 26th and 28th, and found that in such a scenario, Labour would top the polls at 28 per cent, followed by the Brexit Party at 23 per cent, and the Tories at 22 per cent, reports The Telegraph.
Other scenarios included a General Election before October 31st, and before the UK leaves the EU, where the Tories would come out on top at 28 per cent, followed closely by Labour at 27 per cent, and the Brexit Party at 19 per cent.
However, if the Tories held a General Election after delivering Brexit by the deadline but by securing a withdrawal treaty with the EU similar to Theresa May’s deal, the Tories would only come second (26 per cent) behind Labour (29 per cent) with the Brexit Party in third pace (18 per cent), suggesting that there is not a strong appetite for May’s soft-Brexit deal.
It is in only one of four scenarios that the Tories secure a majority, that being if Prime Minister Johnson secured a no-deal Brexit by October 31st, where the Tory Party would gain 36 per cent of the vote, followed by Labour (29 per cent), the Liberal Democrats (15 per cent), and the Brexit Party is pushed into fourth place with eight per cent.
Media has been reporting on the ‘Boris Bounce’, with supporters surging to the Tory Party after newly-appointed Prime Minister Johnson’s hardline rhetoric on Brexit. Guido Fawkes reported on Thursday that two polls, YouGov and Ipsos Mori, put the Conservatives a clear ten points ahead of the Labour Party, with the Brexit Party pushed into fourth place in both instances, suggesting Tory voters who flocked to the Brexit Party in the final months of Theresa May’s leadership may be returning to the Conservatives. However, the support for the Conservatives will only last as long as its commitment to delivering Brexit by the deadline, as the ComRes poll demonstrates.
Ben Walker, founder of Britain Elects which commissioned the ComRes poll, told The Telegraph: “Both the Conservatives and the Brexit Party are ramping up their messaging over the Oct 31 leave and one of them is going to be slaughtered by it.”
The pollster’s findings comes after the Conservatives lost the seat of Brecon and Radnorshire in Wales to the pro-EU Liberal Democrats in Thursday’s by-election. The Liberal Democrats gained 43.5 per cent of the vote, followed by the Tories (39 per cent), the Brexit Party (10.5 per cent), and Labour trailing in fourth on 5.3 per cent.
Chairman of the Bow Group, the UK’s oldest conservative think tank, remarked on the by-election results that combined, the Brexit-supporting parties crossed the more than 50 per cent threshold and called for the Tories and Brexit Party to “unite the right”.
Mr Harris-Quinney wrote: “The last two by-elections have gone to Remain-supporting candidates for Labour and the Liberal Democrats. If the Conservatives and the Brexit Party had done a deal on those two seats alone, we would instead comfortably have two Brexit supporting MPs.”
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage had sought an alliance with the Conservatives to deliver Brexit, an offer that Johnson is currently refusing. Mr Farage warned that should the Tories fail to deliver Brexit by October 31st, his party would “annihilate” them at the next General Election.
On Friday, the Brexit Party announced its first 50 candidates for parliamentary seats, with another one hundred expected in the coming days and a full list of candidates by the end of the month.
Mr Farage said: “With Boris Johnson already watering down Brexit, and looking to bounce the country into an early General Election, trust is now the key issue in British politics.
“Our great candidates will not stand for Mrs May’s treaty being repackaged, it is still the worst deal in history and a betrayal of leave voters. That’s why we are ready to fight in every seat to secure the Brexit that 17.4m voted for.”
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