Tory Humiliated By Makerfield Poll Placing Conservatives Last

A senior Conservative was left red-faced on Sunday when presented with the results of an opinion poll of the Makerfield voters.

Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips showed shadow home secretary Chris Philp the findings from a Survation survey of 369 people set to vote in the crunch by-election.

The graph showed put the Conservatives in last place on 2% in the constituency.

The Green Party were just in front on 3%, the Liberal Democrats on 4%, Restore Britain on 7%, Reform UK on 40% and Labour in the lead on 43%.

Phillips said: “Before 2024, you used to come second between 20 and 30% of the vote.

“Now there are three parties that could describe themselves as being of the right, or centre right, and you – you’re the official opposition – you’re the least popular of the three!

“Reform, Restore, Conservatives.”

Pointing to the graph, he said: “Look, there are the Tories, down there at the bottom. What the heck happened?”

The Tory MP replied: “By-elections are very strange things. You’ve got this weird dynamic where Andy Burnham is running as a Labour candidate to basically kick out Keir Starmer.

“So this by-election is idiosyncratic, it’s incredibly unusual.”

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is hoping to win the Makerfield seat so he can challenge the prime minister’s leadership.

Phillips said: “But people of the right aren’t going to you. They’re going to Reform, they’re going to Restore, which is a party almost nobody has even heard of.

“They are polling better than you are! What has happened to the Tories?”

“Let’s just see what the actual result says,” Philp replied, claiming this was “just one little poll in one constituency in very unusual circumstances”.

He said: “If you take the [national] polls as a whole, we’re often in second place, Kemi is rated as the best leader and you can see that we’re the only party holding the failing Labour Party to account.”

Philp also noted that it takes time to “rebuild trust” with the public following their unpopular 14-year stint in government.

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