OPINION POLLING FOR JULY 2022

Across JULY there were 27 Westminster polls released during the month at various times by all the major polling agencies.  Polling average was (figure in brackets compared to last month).

Con 31.8% (-1.1) 
Lab  40.8% (+1.6)
LDem 11.9% (-0.3)
Grn 5.7% (+0.2)
Rfm 3.4% (nc)
Oth 6.4% (-0.5)
Ave Lab lead over Con for July:- 8.96% (+2.65)

A tectonic plate shifting month which saw Johnson - who won a vote of No Confidence among Tory MPs by 59/41% back in early June,  then facing a Teresa May/Jeremy Corbyn style 'execution' as Minister after Minister quit, eventually leaving Johnson no option other than to resign as Tory Party Leader,  meaning that as soon as a new one is selected, by Tory party convention, he will also have to resign as PM.

The Tory Party leadership campaign then quickly swung into action, and two candidates - Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, came through the field and have been put forward to the membership to select an eventual winner, to be announced on Sep 05.   Shortly after - probably the late morning of the following day, Johnson will then seek an audience with the Queen where he will offer his resignation as her PM and his succesor will be offered the position by the Queen  and asked to form a new government.

On paper, Sunak is by far the better candidate however the Tory Party membership to do not forgive easily  (of the other three coup instigators Gove & Javid didn't even bother standing and Zahawi was eliminated in the first round).  Johnson was and remains very popular with the grass roots of the membership, the Tory back-benchers particulalry the ERG/NRG groups and with the Red Wall Tory MPs and they all see Sunak as one of the main architects in Johnson's demise and are thus not in a 'forgive and forget' mood and as it stands, Truss is way way ahead of Sunak in membership polling with poll after poll showing her with a commanding lead, the latest being YouGov who have it 69-31% in her favour  with Sunak in on-going decline.    This promises to get very very nasty as Sunak is clearly the establishment 'stooge' and favoured by senior Tories, in addition his campaign manager is sir Lynton Crosby - who is a master of dirty tactics.  However the membership does not look like it gives a damn what slurs are made against Truss, the fact she is 'not Sunak' is good enough.   I myself as a Tory member will be voting and from the start, like most of the grass roots, have adopted a position of 'if Sunak gets to the run-off, I will vote for whoever is against him'. 

This does not look like it is going to end well and when (not if) Truss wins,  I would not be surprised to see many senior Tories exiled to the back benches and summarily executed by their local Conservative Associations before the next election in 2 years time, Sunak included.

As for the national opinion polls, Tory support dropped off a cliff when Johnson stood down and this shows in polling figures for the three main parties as they literally swung all over the place. The Tories swung between 28-34%, Labour between 35-45% and the LDems between 9-15%.  Labour managed to hit the magic 40% twenty times during the 27 polls and on one occasion showed a 15% lead (SavantaComRes, 08-10 Jul ).   Labour led in every poll  with leads of between 1%-15%.  By the closing stages of the month, things had settled considerably and the Tories were showing a remarkable recovery, pulling back to trailing Labour by an average of 4%(The electorate is highly volatile at the moment and lurches quite some way over short periods of time).

If a General Election were conducted on these JULY figures and using the new boundaries, it would result in a Parliament of L323, C230, SNP54, LD18, PC5, G1, NI18, Speaker 1 with Labour 3 short of an actual majority, but because of Sinn Fein's policy of absenteeism, a small working majority depending on how many seats Sinn Fein win and refuse to occupy.

Comparisons

General Election 12 Dec 2019: 

UK TOTAL - Con 43.6%, Lab 32.2%, LDem 11.6%, Grn 2.7%, Oth 9.9%

GB ONLY - Con 44.7%, Lab 33.0%, LDem 11.8%, Grn 2.8%, Oth 7.7%

UK lead Con over Lab: 11.4%

GB lead Con over Lab: 11.7%

Polling figures for 2021 (256 polls)

Con 40.3%, Lab 35.2%, LDem 8.4%, Grn 5.7%, Rfm 5.7, Oth 4.7
Con lead over Lab 2021: 5.1%

Polling figures for 2022 (172 polls)

Con 33.3%, Lab 39.7%, LDem 10.8%, Grn 5.6%, Rfm 3.3%, Oth 7.3%

Lab lead over Con 2022: 6.41%

Polling figures for Jul (27 polls)

Con 31.8%, Lab 40.8%, LDem 11.9%, Grn 5.7%, Rfm 3.4%, Oth 6.4%

Lab lead over Con Jun: 8.96%

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SCOTLAND

There was one Westminster poll released during July, showing virtually no change at all,  as follows:-

SNP: 47.0%, SCon: 19%,  SLab: 23%, SLD: 8%, Oth: 3%

There were no Holyrood polls released during July. 

There was one IndyRef poll released during the month as follows:-

Yes: 48%, No: 47%, DK: 5%

(Y:50.5% 49.5%)

(GE 2019:-

SNP: 45%, SCon: 25.1%, SLab: 18.6%, SLDem: 9.5%, SGrn: 1.0%, Oth: 0.8%).

(HOLYROOD 2021:-
SNP: 47.7/40.3%, SCon: 21.9/23.5%, SLab: 21.6/17.9%, SLDem: 6.9/5.1%, SGP: 1.3/8.1%, Oth: 0.6/3.4%).

(IndyRef 2014
Yes: 37.8%, No: 46.8%, no vote: 15.4%

Y:44.7%,  N:55.3% )

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WALES

There were no Westminster polls released during the month.

There were no Senedd opinion polls released during the month.

(The Senedd voting system will change for the next Senedd election in 2026.  Currently it uses a hybrid system of first past the post Constituencies and PR-based regional top-up lists.   The proposal is that this is scrapped, the Senedd enlarged from the current 60 seats to 96 and the voting system replaced by a closed party list PR based system on 16 'super-constituencies' each consisting of 6 seats.  Voters will only be allowed to vote for a party - not a named candidate and a D'Hondt-type method used to allocate seats within each super-constituency, with the parties then allocating people to the seats they win. Party appointed delegates as opposed to people appointed representatives.)

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NORTHERN IRELAND

No Westmister polling released during the month.

There was one Assembly poll released, the first since their election in early May, as follows (figure in brackets is change since May's election):-

SF 30.9% (+1.9), DUP 20.1% (-1.2), NIAP 15.3% (+1.8), UUP 9.6% (-1.6), SDLP 10.0% (+0.9), TUV 4.7% (-2.9), PBP 2.2% (+1.0), Oth 7.2% (+0.1)

(GE2019:-
SF 22.8%, DUP 30.6%, NIAP 16.8%, UUP 11.7%, SDLP 14.9%, Oth 3.2%)

(Assembly 2022 :-
SF 29.0%,  DUP 21.3%, NIAP 13.5%, UUP 11.2%, SDLP 9.1%, TUV 7.6%, PBP 1.2%, Oth 71.%)

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REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

I include the Republic because they are the only foreign country with a common land border with the UK and also share a common heritage. In addition, what goes on in Dublin also has an effect in Belfast and in London and vice-versa all round.

There were two polls during the month that averaged as (comparison to last month in brackets):-

SF: 36.0% (n/c)

FF: 17.5% (-0.2)

FG: 20.0% (-0.7)

GP: 3.5% (-0.2)

LP: 4.0% (n/c)

SD: 2.5% (-0.5)

S-PBP: 3.0% (+0.3) 

AÚ: 2.0% (-0.3)

Oth/Ind: 12.0% (+2.1)

(General Election 2020)

SF: 24.5%

FF: 22.2%

FG: 20.9%

GP: 7.1%

LP: 4.4%

SD: 2.9%

S-PBP: 2.6%

AÚ: 1.9%

Oth: 13.5%

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ITALY

After collapsing for a second time (quelle surprise - not),  the Coalition of technocrat Mario Draghi - basically a 'house of cards' of 6 parties with very ;ittle in common, has collapsed for good and the Italians will elect a new Parliament on Sunday Sep 25.   As it stands, an extreme right wing coalition of three parties - Forza Italia (Italy Forward), Lega (League) & Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) is going to waltz it - and by Italian standards, a three-party coalition is stable governance to boot.   Think along the lines of a coalition of Britain First, National Front & the BNP as to the impact this will have.    As it stands (by quite some margin) the Italian President - Sergio Mattarella,  will be inviting  Giorgia Meloni ( of Fratelli) to take up the post as Italy's first female Prime Minister and form a government.   The three partners wish to leave the €uro as fast as they can print Lira notes and mint coins, default on the bail-out repayments to the ECB, formally leave the EU almost immediately with a 'Hard Italexit', re-introduce military conscription, remove Italian citizenship from immigrants of non-european heritage, place all the illegals in naval landing craft and dump them back on the beaches of North Africa (similar to how Australia dealt with their problem). And that's just for starters.  Always been partial to a bit of fascism have the Italians, right back to the days of Ancient Rome. 8 weeks campaigning is a long time and a lot could change,  but the 'coalition of the Right' appears to be gaining ground and increasing support.  Basically, the Italian people have had enough of the EU,  enough of the ECB's crippling bail-out repayments and enough of the streams of illegals coming across the 'Med' from North Africa.  And the EU has a major political crisis looming, exactly when it doesn't want it.

Since the government collapsed,  there have been 13 polls and they average as follows (the colour denotes their political 'leaning'):-

M5S - 10.2%
PD - 22.9%
LEGA - 13.7%
FI - 8.0%

FDL- 23.7%
ART-1 - 1.5%
SI-EV - 3.6%
E-A - 5.1%
I-V - 2.7%
ITALEXIT - 2.4%
IPF - 1.6%
OTH - 6.5%

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