LABOUR'S lead over Tories has fallen 7 percentage points to its lowest since June 2023, a Savanta poll showed on Wednesday (14), after the opposition party scrapped a green spending target and struggled with anti-Semitism allegations.
Polls over the past year have consistently shown Labour on course for victory in this year's national election following 14 years under the Tories led by prime minister Rishi Sunak.
The latest poll, conducted between Feb. 9 and Feb. 11, estimates that Labour would take 41 per cent of the vote, down five points from two weeks before. Support for the Tories rose by two points to 29 per cent in the same period. The results are based on online interviews with 2,224 people.
The last time Savanta's polling showed Labour's vote share as low as 41 per cent was in September 2022 and the party's lead as low as 12 points was in June last year.
Although Savanta Political Research Director Chris Hopkins cautioned against reading too much into a single poll, he said it showed there were question marks for some voters over Labour.
"This poll still serves as useful a reminder as any that Labour's lead - while consistently high for many months - is not infallible," he said.
"Voters have not quite made up their mind about Keir Starmer's Labour party, and doubts could well be creeping back in."
The polling coincided with the first media reports that Labour's candidate to become a member of parliament in a so-called by-election in Rochdale, northern England, had been recorded espousing conspiracy theories about Israel.
It also came after the party announced a policy U-turn, saying it would scrap a target to eventually spend £ 28 billion a year on green industries if it takes power because of the worsened economic outlook.
Modelling provided by the Electoral Calculus website based on the latest poll still put Labour on course for a 92-seat majority if replicated at the national election, Savanta said.
(Reuters)
