Boost for Boris as Brits say he is the best Prime Minister since election

Boris Johnson is the most popular Prime Minister since the 2019 Election, a new poll indicates. 

A People Polling for GB News poll saw one in four Brits – 26% – opt for Mr Johnson while 15% said Rishi Sunak. Just 2% picked Liz Truss, who attempted to defend her Premiership in a new interview this week.

The polling found 21% preferred not to say and 36% – over a third – didn’t know who the best PM had been.

Backing for Boris was even higher among Conservative voters.  When polled, 52% of Tories said Boris Johnson, 18% picked Rishi Sunak, and only 2% opted for Liz Truss.

Commenting on the findings, politics expert Professor Matt Goodwin said: 

“These results show how Boris Johnson is still seen by a significant number of voters, including more than half of all Conservatives, as their favourite prime minister since the 2019 general election. The fact that Rishi Sunak is so far behind Boris Johnson among 2019 Conservatives, the very voters he needs to win back, will no doubt be ringing alarm bells in Number 10 Downing Street.”

Among Conservative Party Members, the support for the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson is believed to be even greater.

After Liz Truss stepped down, a poll conducted by the Conservative Post shows over 90% of party members would have voted for Boris Johnson to be back in Number 10 had they been given the opportunity.

The Conservative Post poll was emailed to 10,000 confirmed party members which is believed to be the largest database of members outside of Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ). 

3932 Conservative Party members responded and voted in the poll that was conducted between the 24^th and 27^th October 2022, the same week Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister. The poll read: 

Dear Conservative Party Member, Please take part in our members poll so we can see how you would have voted had you had the option of Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak or Penny Mordaunt becoming the leader of the Conservative Party / Britain’s next Prime Minister. Please note only Conservative Party members (with valid membership numbers) will be included in the results. 

Members were then given the option of voting for one of the three available options – Boris Johnson, Penny Mordaunt or Rishi Sunak. All members also had to disclose their membership number and area association before casting their vote.

The results which were overseen by experienced director of strategy and party constitutional expert Mike Rouse shows 3932 members responded with a whopping 3540 saying they would have voted for Boris Johnson given the chance. Only 173 would have voted for Penny Mordaunt and 219 would have voted for Rishi Sunak. 

This equates to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson winning 90% of the members vote, current PM Rishi Sunak winning 5.6% and Penny Mordaunt winning 4.4%.

• Boris Johnson – 3540 (90.0%)
• Rishi Sunak – 219 (5.6%)
• Penny Mordaunt – 173 (4.4%)

Members were also asked “Assuming you voted Conservative in 2019, who will you now vote for at the next General Election?”

Of the 3932 respondents, 2281 (58%) of the party members said they would not vote Conservative at the next General Election and 1651 (42%) said they would. 

Conservative Post editor Claire Bullivant said:

“We knew Boris was popular with the members but this result is astounding. It shows Boris would have won by a landslide against Rishi.”

Conservative Peer and former Party Treasurer Lord Cruddas added:

“This is what happens when you disenfranchise the electorate and the members of the Conservative Party by replacing a democratically elected Prime Minister with an unelected one. You lose their trust.

“Unless Boris is reinstated before the next General Election the Conservatives will be in opposition for a decade.”