Poll: Brexit-distracted Tories lose voter trust on core issues

As the U.K.'s Conservatives struggle to deliver Brexit, an exclusive poll for POLITICO suggests the party has lost the trust of voters on core issues.

In swing seats across the country, the Tories are trailing Labour on the central issues people most care about, the new POLITICO-Hanbury tracker poll conducted in battleground constituencies has found. But despite the negative view of the party and its handling of Brexit, Theresa May is still seen as the stronger leader compared to her opposition counterpart Jeremy Corbyn. 

With efforts to break the Brexit impasse in parliament yet to bear fruit, both parties are studying the polls closely. One way out of the crisis might be a general election — either called by May herself or forced on her by the opposition and disgruntled Brexiteers on her backbenches. But the results of POLITICO’s first election battleground tracker poll reveal the deep structural problem now facing the Conservative Party, which has fallen behind on the bread-and-butter issues seen as the most pressing nationally.

According to the poll of four “clusters” of constituencies in London, the East Midlands, the North West and Scotland carried out between February 28 and March 22, there is deep national discontent with the two main parties. Both are seen as out-of-touch and incompetent. Yet it is the Conservative Party that is now trailing overall on the core issues ranked as the most important by the public — Brexit, crime, housing and health. 

The Tories are behind in two out of the four key battlegrounds on Brexit and crime — and behind in all four on housing and health.

The major saving grace for the Conservatives remains Corbyn’s leadership, which the survey suggests is the one significant block to Labour pulling away in the polls.

While across all four areas of the country the Tories are seen as “incompetent” and “only for the rich,” May continues to have a higher approval ratings and is seen as a better leader than Corbyn.

Voters in every cluster rate the Tories as more "out of touch" than Labour, but on leadership, whilst both are extremely unpopular, May is clearly ahead of Corbyn. May has a higher net satisfaction rating than Corbyn in every cluster of marginal constituencies, the survey found. She is also consistently seen as more "responsible" and "strong." Because of the focused nature of the poll it does not provide a national figure for voting intentions. However other recent polls have suggested the Tories are losing ground to Labour nationally.

When pressed on the BBC's Today program about the Tories' plummeting opinion poll ratings, former Brexit Secretary and potential leadership candidate David Davis insisted the Tories would recover in the polls once Brexit has been delivered.

"Once it is solved, the Tory Party will leap back into the lead,” he said.

But the poll suggests the party’s problems are more fundamental and that any snap election would be highly risky for the Conservatives. With May having already announced plans to step down, the party would be hard-pressed to focus any election on leadership — the one key area outside Brexit where they continue to have a clear lead over Labour.

However, the results of the poll also suggest all is not lost for the Tories, should a new leader move past Brexit and restore the party’s reputation for competence, particularly on crime, which has dramatically fallen away.

According to the poll — the first in a series to be published this year — Brexit is named as one of the three most important issues facing the country in all four areas surveyed, with more than 70 percent in each area naming it.

Yet the public appears to have little confidence in either party’s handling of the crisis. 

Asked how well they think the Conservatives would handle Britain’s exit from the EU on a scale of 0 to 10, those in London gave the party a paltry 3.71 on average. The same respondents gave Labour 4.35. In Scotland, Labour was also ahead — 2.8 to 2.67 — though both parties' score is pitiful.

The Tories fare better in the East Midlands, where they are seen as marginally more competent than Labour, scoring 3.5 out of 10, compared with Labour’s 3.33. In the North West, voters scored the Tories 3.4 on average, compared with 3.19 for Labour.

After Brexit, crime is seen as the next most important issue, particularly in London and the East Midlands where 49 percent and 52 percent respectively named it as one of the three most important problems facing the country. In the North West, 41 percent agreed, while the figure dropped to just 29 percent in Scotland.

Despite the Tories’ traditional reputation as the party of law and order, the party is seen as less competent on the issue in London and the North West while only being marginally ahead in Scotland and the East Midlands.

Health and education are the next two most important issues, according to the poll. Health was named by 43 percent of voters in the North West, 39 percent in Scotland, 36 percent in the East Midlands and just 26 percent in London.

As well as being named a national issue, the NHS is seen as a major local issue in all constituency clusters.

Education was named one of the three most important national issues by around one in six voters in all four areas of the country.

Worryingly for the Tories, each of the four areas surveyed believed that Labour would be better than the Conservatives at handling health and education — as well as housing, transport and climate change.

Overall, both parties are viewed as incompetent, but the Conservative brand is more likely to be associated with other negative values.

Across all marginal constituencies, voters most associated the Conservatives with being "out of touch," "incompetent" and "only for the rich." Less than 25 percent of respondents in each constituency think the party could be described as "responsible."