Tories so bad not even Churchill could save them, says Farage
The Conservative Party brand is “in the bin” and not even Winston Churchill could save it, Nigel Farage has claimed.
The former Ukip leader said he did not think Rishi Sunak had a chance at the next election, and no other figure would be able to reverse Tory fortunes either before the next national poll.
Labour is currently projected to win a landslide victory later this year, with Mr Sunak’s party currently trailing by around 20 percentage points.
Speaking on his GB News programme, Mr Farage noted a historical trend of polls tightening in the weeks before general election contests, citing surprise Conservative victories under Margaret Thatcher and Sir John Major.
“I can think of the 1987 general election but perhaps even more so the 1992 election when everybody thought Neil Kinnock would win the election and yet John Major got a majority of just over 20,” he said.
“But to that I think this: I don’t think the polling in those days was quite as accurate as it is today… I don’t believe it’s really about Rishi Sunak. I think if Winston Churchill came back and led the Conservative Party, it wouldn’t really help their ratings very much. ”
Warning that “nobody quite believes” what the Tories have to say, Mr Farage added: “My belief is it’s the Conservative brand that’s really taking the hit. Fourteen years and people feel very let down.
“And they keep changing leader anyway. How on earth would getting rid of Rishi Sunak after the May 2 [local] elections improve their prospects? I believe that the Tory brand is absolutely in the bin. I don’t think Rishi can recover.”
While Mr Sunak’s personal popularity was greater than that of the Conservative Party when he took office in October 2022, he is now similarly unpopular to the Tory brand.
An Ipsos poll on Thursday found Mr Sunak’s net approval as prime minister had slumped to minus 59, the worst score of his tenure.
It matches Sir John Major’s score of minus 59 in August 1994 and is only marginally higher than Jeremy Corbyn’s rating of minus 60 in September 2019, towards the end of his time as Labour leader.
The survey also had the Conservatives on 19 per cent, down a point on 20 per cent in February and the party’s worst score since the regular poll tracker started in 1978.
Mr Sunak insisted at the start of the year there would be “hundreds of polls” between then and the general election, and that the “only one that matters” was the general election itself.
In a potential silver lining for Conservative Campaign Headquarters, Sir Keir Starmer had a net satisfaction score of minus 31, similar to Lord Hague and Ed Miliband at similar points while they were opposition leaders.
