Westminster Voting Intention – January 14th

Con 32 (-1)
Lab 42 (+5)
LDM 11 (=)
Grn 4 (-1)
SNP 4 (=)
Other 7 (-3)

2,151 UK adults, 13-14

(Changes from 7-9 Jan 2022)

Partygate gifts Labour 10pt Voting Intention Lead – Savanta ComRes

Headline Voting Intention: Lab 42 (+5); Con 32 (-1); LD 11 (-); SNP 4 (-); Green 4 (-1); Other 7 (-3)
Largest Labour lead in a Savanta ComRes poll since April 2019 – for context, in that poll the Brexit Party were on 14%, and Change UK were on 9%
Largest Labour vote share in a Savanta ComRes poll since 2013
Those that say PM should resign in the wake of Partygate up 4pts from Tuesday (now 70%)

The Partygate scandal has led to a 10 point Labour lead in the latest Savanta ComRes voting intention.

The poll, the first voting intention conducted by Savanta ComRes since the Partygate scandal broke, shows Labour up 5pts to 42% of the vote, while the Conservatives are down just 1pt to 32%.

This 10pt Labour lead is Savanta ComRes’ largest since April 2019, in a poll where they also showed the Brexit Party on 14% and Change UK on 9%. The 42% Labour vote share is the largest Labour figure shown by Savanta ComRes since 2013.

Despite this, if these figures were repeated at a General Election, Labour would still be two seats short of an overall majority, according to election prediction website Electoral Calculus.

The poll shows that 13% of those who voted Conservative in 2019 are now undecided, with just 66% of 2019 Conservatives still voting for the party in this latest poll. By comparison, Labour retains 87% of its 2019 vote, and just 3% of Labour 2019 voters say they’re undecided.

The poll also finds that seven in ten (70%) Brits say that Boris Johnson should resign in the wake of Partygate, up 4pts from Savanta ComRes’ snap poll on Tuesday. The majority of fieldwork in this poll was conducted before the latest story broke regarding No.10 staff partying in Downing Street the night before Prince Philip’s funeral, however.

Elsewhere in the poll, two thirds (68%) say that the Prime Minister’s apology in the House of Commons before PMQs on Wednesday was not genuine, including half (53%) of those who voted Conservative at the last election.

A further 63% say that they do not trust that Sue Gray’s inquiry into the various parties to allegedly take place in No.10 to uncover whether Covid rules were actually broken. This sentiment is also shared by half (51%) of 2019 Conservative voters.

And a majority (56%) say that the government’s attempts to cover up the scandal is actually worse than the organising and hosting of the parties in the first place, while a third (32%) say that the parties taking place is worse than the cover-up.

Commenting on the findings, Chris Hopkins, Political Research Director at Savanta ComRes says,

“This bombshell poll comes with renewed calls for the Prime Minister to resign, with the vast majority of the public, half of 2019 Conservatives and even two in five people that would still vote Conservative now, saying that Boris Johnson’s time is up.”

“Ultimately, however, it’s his backbenchers most likely to remove him and, even though a Labour lead of this size would deprive Keir Starmer of an outright majority, many of the Conservatives who owe Boris Johnson their jobs for his remarkable 2019 result, would probably be out of Westminster if these figures were to play out at a General Election.”

“The PM’s survival will come down to whether Conservative MPs think that he can turn things around but, if he is to, an admission of the truth and no more attempts to cover-up the flagrant disregard of their own lockdown policies will be the only way to begin to restore public trust.”

Date Published: 14/01/2022

Categories: Voting Intention

Methodology

Savanta ComRes interviewed 2,151 UK adults aged 18+ online on 13-14 January 2022. Dtaa were weighted to be representative of all UK adults by age, sex, region and SEG. Voting intention was also weighted by past vote recall from the 2019 General Election and 2016 EU Referendum, as well as likelihood to vote. Savanta ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.