European election polls: now the Lib Dems overtake Labour

With the Brexit Party and Lib Dems potentially the biggest winners, this weeks vote looks ever more like a referendum on Brexit

SOUTH QUEENSFERRY, SCOTLAND - MAY 16: Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable, Sheila Ritchie, Scottish Liberal Democrats European elections candidate and Christine Jardine MP, join Lib Dem Europ
(Image credit: GETTY IMAGES)

Polling for the European election on 23 May has, for the first time, seen the Liberal Democrats overtake Labour to climb into second position behind Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.

The YouGov/Datapraxis poll, commissioned by the pro-remain Best for Britain campaign and Hope Not Hate and taken from more than 9,000 voters, showed the weeks-old Brexit Party with a robust lead in all regions apart from Scotland. It puts them at 34% overall, with the Lib Dems following with 17%, Labour with 15%, and just 9% voting for the Conservatives.

The poll suggests that the Lib Dems’s clear anti-Brexit stance has revived the party as a political force, while Labour and the Conservatives continue to dwindle. The Tories current single-figure prediction would be “their lowest vote share in a national election since they formed in 1834”, says The Daily Telegraph.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Speaking to the The Independent, Lib Dem leader Vince Cable said: “It’s now clear we are the only serious challenger to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party. We can give them a run for their money if the other Remain voters get behind us.”

An additional YouGov poll for The Times had the Lib Dem lead at 16% to Labour’s 15%, while an Opinium poll for the Observer also found that the Lib Dems had overtaken Labour as the prefered party of remain voters.

According to the Financial Times, an “average of four polls over the past week showed that only 51% of people who voted Labour in the 2017 general election would support the party in next week’s vote.”

However, Labour knows its voter base is just as divided as the country and therefore calculates that a middle-of-the-road stance will lose fewer votes overall. “The gamble the party is making is that it will still be able to hold together its coalition of Leave and Remain voters in a general election, despite its expected losses next week,” says the newspaper.

It is a calculation that has left some senior party figures cold. Shadow treasury minister Clive Lewis has expressed concern that lifelong Labour voters were turning away from the party for the first time due to its refusal to oppose Brexit.

“Many people are telling me that they are not going to vote Labour for the first time in their lives. You’re breaking a seal. The first time is the most difficult, but the second and third time could become easier.”

“It feels like we’ve given [the Lib Dems] the political equivalent of resuscitation,” he added.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
William Gritten

William Gritten is a London-born, New York-based strategist and writer focusing on politics and international affairs.