One Year On – How the Government is Doing a Year Following the General Election

As we approach almost a year since Boris Johnson secured the largest Conservative majority in a general election since Margaret Thatcher in 1987 what do the polls tell us about how things now stand on the key issues determined the result? 

Firstly, Brexit. “Get Brexit Done” was the slogan the Prime Minister trotted out at every opportunity possible during the election. Whilst we did formally leave the EU at the end of January, with just days to go, we are still not much further to understanding how oven ready the PM’s “Oven Ready Deal” on a future trade partnership really was.

According to an analysis of polling by Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University,  the prospect of leaving the current transition period on 31st December without any trade deal having been agreed “is very much a minority preference, backed by no more than a fifth or so of voters.”

Polling by YouGov published last month found that 56% of voters felt the UK Government had handled Britain’s exit from the EU badly, with just 30% saying it had handled it well.  It went on to report that in hindsight, 49% of respondents felt voting to leave the EU was the wrong thing to do, with 41% saying it was the right thing.

Secondly, what of the future of the Union? The general election served only to put rock boosters under the debate around Scotland’s place in the UK as the SNP picked up 48 seats in Westminster, an increase of 13 on the tally they secured in 2017. They did so whilst securing a sizeable 45% of the national share of the vote north of the border.

Despite having dubbed himself the Minister for the Union to highlight the importance he attached to keeping Scotland in the UK, Boris Johnson’s efforts on this front have so far failed. Polling by Ipsos Mori recently found that  among those in Scotland who would be likely to vote in an independence referendum, 56% said they would vote yes while 44% would vote no. It was the 15th poll in a row to show that support for independence was higher than the proportion of people who oppose it.

The same poll continued also to show that the SNP are in a dominant position ahead of next year’s elections to the Scottish Parliament.

Thirdly, how are the Conservatives performing in the famous ‘red wall’ seats which secured Boris Johnson such an impressive majority last year? According to polling by JL Partners for Channel 4 News, not so well. The survey found that across 45 seats the Conservatives gained from Labour in Wales, the Midlands and the North of England, Labour is now leading in terms of voting intentions – 47% compared to the Conservatives on 41%. It warns that the Conservatives are “struggling to retain a large portion of their 2019 vote” in these seats. Applied universally, JL Partners suggest that this would see 36 out of 45 seats returning to Labour at a general election.

The survey finds also that across the red wall seats, asked how Boris Johnson was doing as Prime Minister, voters gave him a net satisfaction rating of -3% compared to Keir Starmer on +18% when they were asked how he was performing as Leader of the Labour Party. The polling shows also that the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is by far the most popular national political leader across the seats where the survey was carried out.

And what of the all-important headline voting intentions across the UK as a whole? Opinium today notes that: “Labour are back in the lead, albeit with a very marginal 2 point lead over the Conservative’s, on 40% to the Tories 38%. This backs up the general picture we have been seeing for the past couple of months of a neck-and-neck race between the two major parties, with neither being able to develop a clear lead.”

As Boris Johnson prepares therefore to mark one year since his election victory, he will have little to celebrate.  

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