The UK’s two-party political system could become a thing of the past in the next General Election as the Conservatives cling on to second place by their fingertips, the latest voting intention figures show.
Labour currently leads in the polls by a hefty margin, but the field is closing behind them. The Brexit party is polling at 21 per cent of the vote, one point behind the Conservatives who are wallowing on 22 per cent.
The European Parliament elections are also expected to spell misery for the big two. Nigel Farage’s new party now has 34 per cent of the voting intention, gaining a 13-point lead over Labour, which has 21 per cent.
The Liberal Democrats are up five points with 12 per cent of the vote, one point ahead of the Conservatives, which are expected to garner just 11 per cent of the vote in the crucial elections.
Adam Drummond, head of political polling at Opinium comments: “There is definitely a degree to which the European elections are bleeding into Westminster voting intention and this is likely inflating the performance of the Brexit party in Westminster voting intention.
“It would be reasonable to assume that this would fall back in an actual general election campaign but the fact that a party that is less than 6 months old is now vying with the governing party for second place is remarkable.
“The Tories’ reliance on Leave voters seemed sensible in the aftermath of the referendum but raising expectations of the kind of deal the UK could get and using phrases “no deal is better than a bad deal” so relentlessly was always going to open the party up to this kind of challenge once those expectations could not be met.”