THE UK Conservatives have pulled ahead of Labour for the first time since the Prime Minister lost her Commons majority at this year’s General Election.
Theresa May, who has been under pressure since the vote in June, will welcome the finding that the Tories’ have taken a one point lead over Labour in the latest YouGov poll, published yesterday.
According to the survey for The Times, support for the Tories is now on 42 per cent, compared to 41 per cent for Labour. The result represents a shift in fortunes for May’s party after a Survation poll at the beginning of the month gave Labour an eight-point lead.
Since then the Tories have trailed behind their rivals, but have gained support over the past week as the Prime Minister finally secured a breakthrough in the Brexit negotiations.
A total of 1680 voters were surveyed on Sunday and Monday, in the wake of the Prime Minister reaching a preliminary Brexit deal on the Northern Irish border, the rights of EU and UK citizens and the size of the divorce bill. The survey, which was a UK wide poll and did not give a Scottish breakdown, also found that the Liberal Democrats were unchanged on 7 per cent.
The boost comes after May received praise from her party over the Brexit agreement in the Commons — and before remarks by Brexit Secretary David Davis on the agreement being “a statement of intent” and “not legally enforceable” were attacked by Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator.
Both eurosceptics and pro-EU Tory MPs lined up to back their leader on Friday, with outspoken backbencher Anna Soubry declaring that there was “complete unanimity” within the party over the deal.
The Prime Minister delivered a disastrous party conference address in September in which she lost her voice, struggled to get through the speech, and was handed a P45 by a prankster, and soon after saw off an attempted coup against her. In the days leading up to the conference Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had set out his own Brexit ‘red lines’.
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