Most Tory voters want to ditch Badenoch and bring back Johnson

Telegraph

2 days ago

Nearly two thirds of Conservative voters would like Boris Johnson to replace Kemi Badenoch as Tory leader, new polling has revealed
Some 60 per cent of Conservative supporters at last year's general election said Mr Johnson, the former prime minister, would make a better leader than Mrs Badenoch.
Nearly half said they would be more likely to vote for the party at the next general election if she were replaced, the exclusive polling, by Survation for The Telegraph, showed.
Of those who voted Conservative at the last election, 45 per cent said a new leader would make them more inclined to do so again, with only eight per cent saying such a change would put them off.
Mrs Badenoch's supporters have maintained that another leadership election would not turn the party's fortunes around and could harm its reputation further.
At the last election, the Conservatives won 23.7 per cent of the vote, but the latest polls have shown their support dropping as low as 16 per cent.
After Mrs Badenoch took over from Rishi Sunak last November, the Conservatives briefly enjoyed a small poll lead over Labour and were in first place on 29 per cent.
A haemorrhaging of support to Reform UK since has been blamed for the party's dwindling fortunes. In the last round of local elections, the Tories lost 674 council seats, many of them to Nigel Farage's party.
Mr Johnson also polled well among those who supported Reform UK at the general election, with half saying he would make a better leader of the Conservatives than Mrs Badenoch. It comes amid plotting by some party figures to return him to the head of the party.
Despite continuing support for Mr Johnson among Tory voters, senior MPs in the party's 121-strong parliamentary cohort said there was no 'appetite' or 'enthusiasm' in the Commons for him to return.
His popularity among the public at large is also considerably lower than with Conservatives, with only 33 per cent of all voters saying he would make a better Tory leader.
The figures also show that 49 per cent of Tory voters from the last general election were satisfied with Mrs Badenoch's performance, while 19 per cent said they were dissatisfied.
She currently has a net negative rating among voters in general, according to Survation's polling, with 31 per cent disapproving of her performance and 27 per cent approving, although a large portion remained undecided.
The polling showed that her other perceived rivals for the leadership have had far less cut through with Tory voters than Mr Johnson.
Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly, both of whom stood against her in last year's leadership election, are considered a better option now by 27 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.
A Conservative Party source said: 'Changing leader again would be the worst possible step in trying to convince voters we're a serious party who understand where we went wrong in the past.
'We all need to be focused on the real goal – kicking out this terrible Labour government that is making everything worse.'
Mrs Badenoch has faced a difficult few months as leader of the opposition, with Reform surging and the Conservatives dropping into fourth place behind the Liberal Democrats in some polls.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, has described the Conservatives as a 'dead party walking' and declared that Mr Farage would be his main opponent at the next general election.