Voters say “not yet” to a snap general election
Election fatigue appears to have set in†among voters with barely a quarter of UK adults (23%) saying that the next general election should take place in 2017 vs. 34% saying it shouldn’t take place until 2020.
Conservative voters are the most likely to say that†the next election should take place, on schedule according to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, in 2020. UKIP voters are also more in favour of letting this parliament run its full term than they are of a snap election.
In contrast Labour , Liberal Democrat and SNP voters are more likely to say that there should be an election earlier than this with around a third saying it should take place this year:
While this may seem paradoxical given the strength of the Conservatives in voting intention polls and the relative weakness of Labour,†this makes more sense when we look at it through the prism of the referendum and the Brexit process:
A convincing majority of Conservative voters, and the vast majority of UKIP voters, supported leaving the EU in last year’s referendum while Labour, Lib Dem and SNP voters largely opposed it. With Brexit dominating the political calendar and, in contrast to the doubt and uncertainty†last summer, finally taking place, it is understandable that Leave voters are more wary of anything distracting†or potentially derailing this process. Remain supporters, regardless of how one-sided the polls indicate a general election result would be, may see a new general election as the only way to stop or influence the direction of Brexit.
Full data and tables are available here.
