Delivering Brexit Fails To Boost Tory Election Chances

Joe Short

January 21st, 2021

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The UK’s last-minute trade agreement with the EU in December has failed to significantly improve the Conservatives’ chances of winning the next general election, polls and politics betting odds indicate.

Boris Johnson’s government secured a late agreement with the European trading bloc just days before the New Year Brexit deadline on a deal was due.

The deal – which had previously been the downfall of former PM Theresa May – came four years on from the actual Brexit referendum that rocked British politics.

Johnson himself campaigned as leader of the Tories in the 2019 general election under the slogan to ‘Get Brexit Done’.

He duly won an 80-seat majority, meaning that bar a few rebellions within his own party the agreement with the EU was eventually accepted by Parliament.

Tory Election Odds

Yet the fulfilment by Johnson to secure a trade deal – rather than leaving the European Union and defaulting onto unfavourable World Trade Organisation terms – hasn’t done much for the Tories’ election chances.

According to the latest data from Politico, both the Conservatives and Labour are polling at 39%. That figure has barely budged since late October, a period that spans the implementation of Brexit and the roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine.

Indeed, Johnson’s party is enduring its worst ratings in terms of Westminster voting intention than any time since the 2019 election.

And bookmakers have cottoned on to this by widening the Tories’ chances of winning a majority in 2024 to 2/1 – the same as Labour. That effectively gives both of Westminster’s major parties a 50/50 chance of being in power after the next election.

Labour Making Ground

Meanwhile, the odds on a Labour minority government have edged in to 4/1. It indicates that while Sir Keir Starmer’s party isn’t delivering the knockout blows to the PM and his team right now, there is growing support for the opposition.

When Starmer took over the Labour leadership in April 2020 the party had a 29% approval rating, compared to 51% for the Conservatives. Yet a year dominated by coronavirus and a number of political U-turns has seen the Tory polls come crashing down.

Johnson will hope that the coronavirus vaccine roll-out gives his party a lift as we move into the spring. Reports claim that the PM is desperate for the nationwide lockdown that was implemented just after Christmas to be the last one the country experiences.

Plans are being drawn up as to how the UK comes out of lockdown, with Easter a proposed date. That would be when the current furlough scheme ends and millions more of the population should have received their vaccine.

Yet even with Covid-19 rumbling on, the fall-out to the Brexit deal will continue to shape British politics for years to come. And how this affects voting intention remains to be seen.