No Brexit deal bounce for Rishi Sunak, poll shows

Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal with the EU over Northern Ireland has not given him a meaningful poll bounce with the Conservatives still facing a crushing defeat at the next election.

According to an exclusive poll for The Telegraph, the Tories are still 23 per cent behind Labour and would be reduced to just 69 seats if the results were replicated in an election.

All the fieldwork for the survey was conducted after the Prime Minister had unveiled his ‘Windsor Framework’ deal with the EU.

Last Monday, Mr Sunak hailed a “turning point” in the UK’s relations with Brussels by announcing a deal to modify the Northern Ireland Protocol - the post-Brexit agreement on trade aimed at avoiding the creation of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

The Prime Minister negotiated a number of changes to the Protocol, including the elimination of most customs checks on British imports destined for the Northern Irish market, powers for the UK Government to control VAT rates and state aid, and a “Stormont Brake” giving the Northern Ireland Assembly a greater say on incoming EU laws.

The deal generated positive media headlines for the Prime Minister while criticism of the agreement by Eurosceptic Tory MPs has so far been relatively subdued, raising Conservative hopes that it would mark the start of a fightback against Labour in the polls.

One Tory MP facing Lib Dem insurgents in a ‘Blue Wall’ seat told The Telegraph that Mr Sunak had “played an absolute blinder”.

“He could have completely turned things around in terms of the next general election by this wonderful piece of diplomacy,” they said. Mr Sunak’s “steady and stable” leadership was “really changing things on the doorstep,” they added.

However, a poll by Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus for The Telegraph suggests such hopes may be misplaced.

The online survey of 1,534 adults in Britain expressing a voting preference took place between 1-3 March, and found that Labour were on 48 per cent and the Tories on 25 per cent. The Liberal Democrats were on 9 per cent, with the Greens on 6 per cent and Reform UK on 5 per cent.

'Brexit deal has not brought much electoral comfort'

Martin Baxter, the chief executive of Electoral Calculus, said that the findings were broadly in line with recent polls prior to the deal, although the Conservatives were 2 per cent up on a large-scale MRP poll carried out for The Telegraph at the beginning of February, with the Labour lead down from 25 per cent to 23 per cent.

However, Mr Baxter said the latest poll would still result in a massive Labour landslide of 499 seats, while the Tories would be cut down from the 365 seats they won in 2019 to just 69.

He said: “The deal with the EU over Northern Ireland has not brought much electoral comfort to Rishi Sunak as the Conservatives continue to be pretty unpopular with the public.”

A former Cabinet minister told The Telegraph that Conservative support for the deal was important for Mr Sunak, because Sir Keir Starmer would be able to portray the Prime Minister as “weak” if he was forced to capitulate to Eurosceptic Tory MPs.

However, they admitted that the complexities of the Northern Ireland deal were unlikely to cut through to the swing voters in England who would determine the outcome of the next election.