Unprecedented Swing In Public Sentiment Ahead Of The UK Elections

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Terror Attacks Overshadow Polling Results

The sad news of yet another terrorist attack in the UK over the weekend was clearly the major focus for UK traders. However, the latest polls published over the weekend, which was the final weekend ahead of the elections, proved to be extremely interesting. The Conservative party, which had been showing a strong lead in polls up until recent weeks, saw yet a further narrowing of their lead, with the size ranging from 12% according to ComRes and 1% according to Survation.

Huge Swings In Opinion Polls

While the election campaign has been particularly short due to the unexpected announcement of the early election, volatility in opinion polls has been strong.Initially, after the announcement of the election on April 18^th, the Conservatives were as much as 23% ahead in the polls while they are just 7% ahead on average now. This is a dramatic shift in sentiment which would typically take several years to play out and is unprecedented over the course of an election campaign. Indeed, some polls released recently have even put Labour ahead. Despite the volatility in polling results and the narrowing of the Conservatives lead, the majority of polls still support a Conservative victory.

While the campaigns themselves have clearly had a big impact on public sentiment, another important aspect has been the revival of two-party politics as UKIP’s collapse in support has seen focus shift back primarily to Labour and the Conservatives. One key question is whether this portion of the electorate is going to instead vote for the Conservatives or Labour?

Initially, it was assumed that the majority of former UKIP voters would back the Conservatives because of PM May’s commitment to both Brexit and curbing immigration. However, according to recent research conducted using two focus group, half of one the groups stated that they would now back Labour after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn declared that we would continue to negotiate Brexit and that there would be no second referendum.