VOTERS have little support for a Swiss-style relationship with the EU, a new poll has revealed.
According to the survey by People Polling for GB News* just 32% of voters say they would support the idea.
This falls to 15% among Conservatives and 13% among Leavers. There is much stronger support among Labour voters (57%) and Remainers (56%).
The poll found that Brits are also overwhelmingly in favour of moves to train British workers to fix Britain’s ailing economy.
When it comes to filling the gaps in Britain’s economy, 60% of voters believe Britain should prioritise training and educating British workers to fill these gaps over high immigration.
In contrast, only 9% believe Britain should prioritise high immigration to fill the gaps over training and educating British workers.
Among Leavers, four-in-five (79%) believe Britain should prioritise training and educating British workers to fill gaps over high immigration, a view shared by 77% of Conservative Party voters.
Commenting on the findings Prof. Matt Goodwin said: “In the papers this week it was suggested that government officials may be considering moving to a Swiss-style deal. Yet this only attracts support from one-third of the country and strong opposition from many of the Conservative Party’s own voters and Leavers, who are critical to the party’s fortunes at the next General Election. As far as most voters are concerned this appears to be a non-starter.
“It is clear from these results that most voters do not want to return to the old economic model of high immigration with little investment in domestic British workers. The recent position set out by Labour’s Keir Starmer, for example, is widely popular in the country. This underlines why both the main parties should be fleshing out detailed policies for training and educating British workers to help plug the holes in our economy.”
The poll also delivers a welcome boost to Rishi Sunak a week on from the Autumn Statement. It has Labour on 44% of the national vote, the Conservative Party on 24%, the Liberal Democrats on 8%, the Greens on 8% and Reform on 5%. This represents a three-point jump for Conservative and a three-point fall for Labour from last week, reducing the gap between the two parties to 20 points.
Professor Goodwin added: “This is perhaps better news for Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party, but the Labour lead remains solid and strong. The Conservatives are still in the low twenties and, based on these numbers, are still looking at a wipe-out at the next General Election. Rishi Sunak will be hoping he can soon tell his party that he has restored their fortunes but as of today the polls suggest otherwise”.
The poll also surveyed Brits for their views on abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with a new elected chamber. It found 46% support the idea of the House of Lords being replaced with a new elected chamber, whereas only 8% oppose such a plan. Among Labour voters, 61% support replacing the House of Lords with a new elected chamber.
Ahead of England’s match with the USA, the poll also illustrated less than half of Brits support the idea of the national team’s players taking the knee before matches.
It found 40% of all voters support England’s footballers ‘taking the knee’ at their World Cup matches in Qatar, with 23% opposing footballers ‘taking the knee’.
Among Conservative voters, only 21% support England’s footballers ‘taking the knee’ and 44% oppose, whereas 67% of Labour voters support footballers ‘taking the knee’ and only 6% oppose.
