[box type=”info” align=”” class=”” width=””]by Martin Armstrong,
Brexit, or the lack thereof, is currently tearing the Conservative party apart, with the Tory chief whip Julian Smith criticising cabinet ministers for the “worst ill-discipline in history” amid regular and substantial rebellions in key Brexit votes. On the other side of the house, Labour is also suffering somewhat of an identity crisis and is still weathering a storm of anti-Semitism accusations.
As a new poll by YouGov has illustrated, this situation is contributing to increasing disenchantment with the country’s two biggest parties. Of people that voted for the Conservative party in the last general election, only 53 percent would currently lend their support if there were to be an election tomorrow. The largest share of these lost voters appears to be moving further right, with a combined 12 percent saying they would vote for UKIP or Nigel Farage’s new ‘Brexit Party’.
For Labour, the hypothetical votes are a little more evenly shared out, with the Lib Dems attracting 7 percent of the 2017 voters and the Green Party five percent. Overall 22 percent of the party’s voters say they would support another party, compared to 18 percent of the Conservatives’. Representing a feeling many voters probably have at the moment, one fifth on both sides said that the do not currently know how they would cast their vote in the increasingly likely case that there was a general election.
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