One in Five Voters Say Conservatives are Now a ‘Far Right’ Party

Exclusive new polling finds many voters now see Rishi Sunak as a weak politician leading an increasingly extreme party, reports Adam Bienkov

In this week’s Bienkov Briefing:

• Poll finds Sunak is losing the battle for the centre ground of British politics

• Voters see the PM as a weak leader of an increasingly extreme party

• Fewer than one in four voters believe Sunak’s claim to represent “change”

• Rutherglen by-election puts Labour on course for a landslide election victory

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The Conservative party is losing the battle for the centre ground of British politics, according to exclusive new polling for the Byline Supplement, which shows that almost one-in-five voters now believe they are a “far right” party.

Rishi Sunak, who today penned a joint article with the far-right Prime Minister of Italy, Georgia Meloni, has come under fire for authorising a series of hardline interventions by his senior ministers at their conference in Manchester this week.

The Home Secretary Suella Braverman spoke of a “hurricane” of migration which she suggests poses an “existential challenge” to our civilisation, while insisting that her party has been “far too squeamish about being smeared as racist”.

At one point during her conference speech on Tuesday one senior London Conservative figure was bundled out after objecting to her comments about “gender ideology” which he described as a “homophobic and transphobic rant”.

Other ministers, including the Transport Secretary Mark Harper, used their own appearances to repeatedly speak about the debunked far-right ’15 minute city’ conspiracy theory, which suggests that local authorities are attempting to dictate when people can leave their homes.

At another event inside the secure zone at the party’s conference in Manchester, the Conservative MP Danny Kruger told party activists that there was an ongoing attempt by global forces to create a “world government” ahead of another pandemic.

This ongoing lurch to the right appears to be shifting perceptions of the party ahead of the next general election, according to our poll.