Redfield & Wilton Strategies’ latest voting intention poll conducted on Friday the 17th of April has the Conservatives leading by 21%. The poll is our first one conducted since Keir Starmer was elected as the leader of the Labour Party and after Prime Minister Boris Johnson had returned from several days in the ICU. The full numbers with their changes from our previous voting intention poll on the 2nd of April are as follows:
Conservatives 52% (+3)
Labour 31% (+2)
Liberal Democrat 8% (–)
Scottish National Party 4% (–)
Green 3% (-1)
Plaid Cymru 1% (–)
Other 2% (-3)
One thing to note, however, is that our sample this time included a much larger number of those who said they do not know how they would vote in a general election (13% compared to 3% last time). Likelihood to vote also slightly increased among those who had voted Conservative in 2019. With the opposition parties nowhere close to an election footing at this moment, this factor is most susceptible to changing. At the moment, there is a wide disparity between those who voted Conservative in 2019 and those who had voted Labour in likelihood to vote, with 82% saying they would be certain to vote compared to 66% from Labour.
Not accounting for respondents’ stated likelihood to vote, the Conservative lead in our numbers drops to 16%, the same as it was on the 2nd of April. In time, assuming the current range of support among the overall population for each party remains the same, we would still expect the Conservative lead to decline as opposition parties stand on better footing and as their voters become more enthusiastic about voting. However, it is very likely the range of support for these parties will also change as current events continue to unfold.
For now, looking at our overall numbers, there is little to no difference between our results on Friday and those at the beginning of this month. As such, the latest events including Keir Starmer’s ascension to the Labour Party leadership and the extension of the current lockdown measures in the UK have had no measurable impact on current UK voting intention.
