The Conservative Party’s longstanding poll lead has been cut by five points in the wake of the Owen Paterson debacle – described by Labour as a “sleazy mess”.
Boris Johnson now faces a by-election in North Shropshire set to be dominated by claims of corruption following an astonishing U-turn by Downing Street and the Tory MP’s stunning resignation.
A furious backlash forced the prime minister to abandon his plan to overhaul the disciplinary process while preventing Mr Paterson’s 30-day suspension for a breach of lobbying rules.
The latest YouGov poll shows the Tories down by three points on 36 per cent and Labour up two points on 35 per cent.
The survey for The Times was carried out on Wednesday evening and Thursday – shortly after the government’s controversial Commons vote to save Mr Paterson and rewrite conduct rules.
Political polling analyst Mike Smithson said: “The polling takes place amidst very special circumstance. The question is, will it be prolonged or will those not ready to say Conservative now swing back slowly in the next few weeks or months?”
He added: “My guess is that there will be a shift back but it will take time and it might not be all of them.”
Labour has indicated it will put up a candidate in the looming North Shropshire by-election prompted by the resignation of Mr Paterson.
Informal discussions were held between Labour, the Lib Dems and Green Party over whether they could unite behind a single anti-sleaze candidate after the debacle which saw the Tory quit as an MP.
But Sir Keir Starmer’s party is understood to have decided to field a candidate in the West Midlands constituency, in which Mr Paterson had a comfortable majority of almost 23,000.
Labour also condemned claims Tory MPs were threatened with the loss of money for their area if they failed to back the government. Potential rebels were told they would “lose funding for their constituency” if they did not voted the right way on Wednesday, according to the Financial Times.
Labour chair Anneliese Dodds said: “Threatening to hold money back from voters and their communities, all to protect a Tory MP who broke the rules. If true this marks a new low for Johnson’s scandal-ridden Conservatives.”
The farcical series of events over Mr Paterson have led to some Tories pointing the finger of blame at chief whip Mark Spencer, although Downing Street insisted Mr Johnson had confidence in him and the “excellent job” he was doing.
But Mr Johnson is also facing considerable anger from his own benches. One ex-minister told The Independent that MPs – particularly the 2019 “red wall” intake – were “apoplectic with rage” at being told to vote in a way which appeared that they were bending the rules to save their colleague.
“Some really new colleagues with wafer-thin majorities just cannot believe the ineptitude with which this has been handled,” said the MP. “It’s been awful, cr*p, useless.”
Sir David Lidington, former Tory leader of the House of Commons, told Radio 4’s Today programme that the mess had “weakened the government”.
He said: “Clearly there was a pretty appalling set of misjudgments involved … If you ask your troops to march through the lobby on something like this and which they don’t think is right and then you U-turn on it, it’s going to be more difficult next time around.”
But education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said Mr Johnson’s astonishing U-turn on Thursday showed “character”.
Admitting it was a “mistake” for the government to conflate the Tory MP’s case with an attempt to change conduct rules – he claimed on LBC that the PM had been wise not to “plough on ahead regardless”.
