After a month of contentious Brexit-related votes in the House of Commons, BMG’s latest Westminster voting intention poll shows the Conservative fall. The exclusive poll on behalf of the Independent was conducted between 2nd and 5th April and surveyed 1,503 GB adults.
After two consecutive months of growth, the Conservative party voting intention has dropped to in BMG’s latest Westminster Voting Intention tracker poll. That said, despite a loss of 4 percentage points from March, the Conservatives are still marginally ahead of the Labour Party, although the lead of 1% is well within the margin of error. The Labour party’s voting intention share stays steady at 34%.
The Liberal Democrats and UKIP vote shares remain stable at 11% and 6% respectively.
What is the effect of The Brexit Party and Change UK?
BMG also asked respondents a separate voting intention question that included an option for The Brexit Party and Change UK (Formerly The Independent Group). The Brexit Party, led by former UKIP-leader Nigel Farage, was launched back in January and registered with the Electoral Commission in February. The Independent Group recently changed its name to Change UK upon applying to the Electoral Commission to become a political party.
Respondents were asked: “If a hypothetical General Election were held today with the following parties available to vote for, who would you vote for?”, with options for The Brexit Party and Change UK included as additions.
The poll shows The Brexit Party attracting the support of 6%, whilst Change UK receives 8%. The poll suggests that both of the major parties are set to lose some support. However, the results indicate that it is the Conservative Party who would be most affected, with a potential drop of 6 percentage points, compared to the three point drop for Labour. That said, given that awareness of both parties is still fairly low, plus the usual caveats for the margin of error, readers should treat the changes with a degree of caution.
Unlike other polls examining support for Change UK and The Brexit Party, the question did not include a preamble explaining who each of the parties were or information on each of their respective policy agendas. Our poll therefore relies exclusively on respondents “top-of-mind” awareness each of the new political outfits, with little chance that any respondents stating they would vote for them as a result of being primed by the wording of the questions or previous questions.
That said, it is worth noting that the poll provides every respondent with the opportunity to select either Change UK or the Brexit Party, despite it being unclear how many seats each of the parties would opt to stand in across Great Britain.
Readers should also note that all polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error. The historical record of public opinion polls at recent General Elections suggests that there is a 9 in 10 chance the true value of a party’s support share lies within 4 points of the estimates provided by this poll, and there is a 2 in 3 chance that the results lie within 2 points.
Methodology, fieldwork dates, and a full breakdown of these results can be found here.
Please note that our method has changed after the 2017 General Election. Full details can be found here.
For a more detailed breakdown of results from this poll, or any other results from our polling series, please get in touch by email or phone.
0121 333 6006
Andrew Price – Research Manager
Robert Struthers – Senior Research Executive