UK’s Ruling Conservative Party’s Approval Rating is at 20%, the Lowest in 46 Years

It’s lower than after the short-powered Truss government, a big gap with the Labour Party of 47%

A survey has revealed that the approval rating for the UK’s ruling Conservative Party has dropped to its lowest level in 46 years.

According to Reuters and other sources on the 5th (local time), a poll conducted by Ipsos between the 21st and 28th of last month, asking 1,400 British adults by phone, revealed that only 20% would vote for the Conservative Party in the next general election.

This is the lowest approval rating for the Conservative Party since Ipsos started its regular poll in 1978.

The previous lowest approval rating for the Conservative Party in an Ipsos poll was 22% during the government of John Major in December 1994 and May 1995. Two years later, in the 1997 general election, Tony Blair’s Labour Party won a landslide victory.

This approval rating is even lower than the 23% in December 2022, immediately after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took office, succeeding Liz Truss, who resigned just 49 days into her term due to policy missteps.

The opposition center-left Labour Party led the poll with 47%, 27 points ahead.

Also in a survey released by pollster YouGov on the 1st, the Conservative Party trailed behind the Labour Party by 26 points with a 20% approval rating.

In the 2019 general election led by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party took power with a 43.6% vote share and 365 seats in the House of Commons, but its recent approval rating has been halved.

The Conservative Party’s popularity is believed to have been dragged down by a difficult economic situation, including two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth in the second half of last year, a series of losses in important by-elections this year, and controversy over the policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Although the general election in the UK is expected to be held in October of this year, there is talk of an early general election in May, mainly among the opposition parties.

Prime Minister Sunak, who has the power to decide the timing of the general election, stated in January that “the general election will be held in the second half of this year.”