Nearly half of 2019 Tory voters want closer ties with the EU, according to new poll

Rishi Sunak’s hopes for a quiet Easter are off to a poor start.

Polling expert John Curtice has told POLITICO that Labour has a 99% chance of winning the next election. Meanwhile, the Telegraph-Savanta poll tracker only adds to the government’s misery, putting the Tories at 24% – their lowest rating since Liz Truss’s catastrophic mini-budget – with Labour 20 points clear at 44%.

And now a new survey by Deltaoll on behalf of communications consultancy firm Helm Partners only makes matters worse for the prime minister. Over 1500 people who voted Conservative in 2019 were surveyed, and fewer than half said they planned to stick with them (a group previously described as “loyal Tories”), down from 54% in February. Labour will take the votes of 16% of them – up from 14% last month – but there is a big shift among 2019 Tories to Reform UK.

The party led by Richard Tice claims almost one in five of those who voted Tory four years ago, an increase from 13% a month ago. Their rise is partly at the expense of the undecided who are at 10 per cent compared with 12 per cent in February.

Equally fascinating is that 2019 Tory voters also appear in favour of closer trading links to the European Union. A mere 27% of them want to go further than Brexit and believe that Britain should be prepared to break more institutional links such as membership of the Court of Human Rights. Another 20% want Britain’s relationship with Europe to stay as it is now.

Yet a huge 46% of those who backed Boris Johnson in 2019 want closer links. Of those, 29% say Britain “should seek to rebuild some of its ties with Europe and integrate some of its trading arrangements while staying outside the European Union” and 17% believe rejoining is the way forward.

And only 60% of those who voted for Johnson in the “Get Brexit Done” election now think Britain was right to leave the EU. Greg Cook, associate senior counsel at Helm Partners and who previously headed up Tony Blair’s polling strategy, told TNE: “That includes 21% of those who voted Remain, while 17% of those who voted Leave are now among the 34% in total who believe that Britain was wrong to leave the EU. So essentially the balance remains roughly what it was at the time of the referendum, at least among Conservative voters,” says Greg Cook,

He added: “When it comes to future relationships with Europe however, those Tory backbenchers urging that Britain should cut its ties further are way ahead of their supporters.”