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Independent Political Poll

Methodology:

 

ComRes interviewed 1,000 British adults by telephone between 30th August and 1st September 2013. Data were weighted to be representative of all GB adults and by past vote recall. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. 

 

Date Published: 01 Sep 2013

Categories: Energy | International | Media | Politics | Public and communities | Technology & Telecoms

Description

Labour’s lead over the Conservatives now stands at 6 points, up 3 points from the last telephone poll for The Independent in July. Lib Dems are third with 12%, up 2 points from July, and the first time they have overtaken UKIP in a ComRes telephone poll since December 2012.

 

Lab       37% (-)              

Con      31% (-3)

LD        12% (+2)

UKIP     10% (-2)

Others   10% (+2)

 

The Martin Baxter calculator shows under current constituency boundaries that Labour would win a majority of 78 seats with the number of Conservatives seats dropping by 75. The Liberal Democrats would lose 29 seats, and be left with 28 seats.

 

Syria

With Britain now apparently staying out of military intervention in Syria, the public are still opposed to the USA launching military air strikes to deter the Assad regime from using chemical weapons in future. The majority of Britons (57%) believe that the United States, without Britain, should not launch military air strikes, while fewer than a third (29%) believe they should. This suggests that the public are sceptical about the general principle of Western intervention in Syria, not just the specific use of British forces.

The public are unequivocal however, that any military strikes that do take place in the civil war-stricken country, should be first sanctioned by the United Nations. Four out of five (80%) agree with this principle, compared to just 15% who disagree.

The legacy of the Iraq war has appeared to have coloured the British public’s attitude towards military intervention in the Middle East, with twice as many people agreeing (62%) than disagreeing (31%), that following the experience in Iraq, Britain should keep out of any military conflicts in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. A majority of voters for every party agree with this statement, with Labour (64%) and UKIP (79%) voters slightly more likely to agree than are voters of the Coalition parties (Conservative: 55%, Liberal Democrat: 54%). Older people are more likely than younger generations to agree with this principle (people aged 65 and over: 73%, 18-34 year olds: 57%).

Having lost the controversial vote in the House of Commons, most (54%) of the public believe that David Cameron showed that he is out of touch with Britain in his handling of the Syria crisis. Worryingly for the Prime Minister, this includes a third of his own party’s current supporters (33%) and nearly half (42%) of those who voted Conservative in 2010. Three quarters of current UKIP voters think David Cameron showed he was out of touch (76%), as well as three in five current Labour voters (63%).

 

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