An interesting ICM double opinion poll was published yesterday with voting intentions for both the national and European elections. The differences between the two are instructive.
Given the proportional system used for voting in the European elections, it’s not surprising that smaller parties score more highly there. Conversely, the main parties logically have a lower score. But here’s the thing: Labour only drops by one percentage point, while the Tories lose nearly a quarter of their support and the Lib Dems half!
Of course, polls come and go, so we should be careful not to read too much into a single result. But, if this is an accurate reflection of voting intentions, it translates into a stunning result for Labour. On Europe, all major parties will lose at least two or three points to the smaller parties (UKIP, Greens, etc) relative to their performance in national elections. So the fact that Labour’s loss is so small, and the other big parties’ is so large, means that there must also be a ‘swing’ from other major parties to Labour when it comes to European voting intentions! (The only alternative is that Labour have only lost 1 percentage point to UKIP, Greens and the other small parties combined, which doesn’t seem very plausible!)
In other words, the public has greater confidence in Labour’s approach to Europe than it does in that of any other major party.
| Party | National share (%) | European share (%) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | 37 | 36 | –1 |
| Conservatives | 32 | 25 | –7 |
| Lib Dems | 12 | 6 | –6 |
| UKIP | 11 | 20 | +9 |
| Greens & others | 8 | 13 | +5 |
