UK Polls Point To "Electoral Extinction" For Tories

Three British opinion polls released recently presented a grim picture for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party, with one pollster warning that the party faced "electoral extinction" in the July 4 election, David Milliken reported for Reuters.

Support for the Conservatives dropped 4 points to 21%. I Photo: Rishi Sunak Facebook

The polls come just over halfway through the election campaign, after a week in which both the Conservatives and Labour set out their manifestos, and shortly before voters begin to receive postal ballots.

Sunak announced an early election on May 22. A separate poll by Survation, published by the Sunday Times, predicted the Conservatives could end up with just 72 seats in the 650-member House of Commons - the lowest in their nearly 200-year history - while Labour would win 456 seats.

Market research company Savanta found 46% support for Keir Starmer's Labour Party, up 2 points from the previous poll five days earlier, while support for the Conservatives dropped 4 points to 21%.

The poll was conducted from June 12 to June 14 for the Sunday Telegraph. Labour's 25-point lead is the largest since the premiership of Sunak's predecessor, Liz Truss, whose tax cut plans prompted investors to dump British government bonds, pushing up interest rates and forcing a Bank of England intervention.