What you need to know today
- In a major blow to Tory moral, Reform UK ahead in latest YouGov poll
- Tories claim Labour is secretly planning to put up capital gains tax
- Boris joins the election campaign by publicly backing an MP who had called for Rishi to resign
Campaign watch
Nigel Farage: “We are now the opposition to Labour”
The latest YouGov poll shows that for the first time, Reform UK has overtaken the Conservatives in what will undoubtedly come as a major blow to Tory morale.
The poll puts Nigel Farage’s party on 19%, ahead of the Conservatives on 18%. Labour retains its poll lead at 37%, with the Liberal Democrats coming fourth on 14%.
At last night’s seven-party ITV debate, Farage said “The only wasted vote is a Conservative vote. We are the challengers to Labour and we’re on our way.” In response, Penny Mordaunt, the Conservative House of Commons leader, accused Farage of being a “Labour enabler”, amid concerns raised by polling experts that a right-wing vote split between Reform and the Conservatives may hand Labour a supermajority.
As with all polls, there is a margin of error – YouGov notes “we will not be able to tell for some time whether Reform can sustain or improve their positive relative to the Conservatives.”
It is also worth highlighting how YouGov’s survey found 80% of those backing Reform believe a large majority for Labour would be “a bad thing for the country”.
With this in mind, they may back the Conservatives on the 4th of July if only to avoid splitting the vote on the right.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury: it is “unprecedented” that Labour has not ruled out raising capital gains tax
In a press conference today in London, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Laura Trott, said the Labour Party is “secretly planning to put up capital gains tax on your primary residence”, a policy she says would be “disastrous”.
Given Labour has ruled out rises in income tax, national insurance and VAT, there is a likelihood that it will have to increase the rates of capital and property taxes – a policy that it will no doubt present as one affecting only the rich. However, as Charles Moore notes in The Spectator, it will “mark a wider policy shift, attacking the capital accumulation of millions of householders, something which no government has done for a long time.”
In response, Labour has claimed the Tories are talking about things they have “imagined” Labour doing rather than the reality.
Moreover, in its analysis of the impact of Labour’s tax plans, the Conservative Party was forced to admit today that the tax burden, which is already at its highest level in 70 years, would increase if they are elected – but they claim the rise could not be as significant as under a Labour government.
Johnson backs Rishi rebel
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has released a video in support of Sir Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary who served as a minister in the Johnson and Truss administrations. The move will surely raise eyebrows at CCHQ given January saw Clark publicly call for Sunak to resign, warning that the party faced an "electoral massacre" if he remained Tory leader.
Insights of the day
The FT discusses the likely effect of a change in law earlier this year – one that scrapped a rule that removed the right to vote from people who have lived outside of the UK for more than 15 years. The change has potentially tripled their impact on the election, with the government estimating that it will boost the pool of potential overseas voters from one million to 3.3 million, although historically less than one-fifth of those eligible get around to registering.
Labour fought against the reform on the grounds it would create a loophole for “tax haven billionaires” to keep funnelling money into Tory coffers, however, the FT argues that expats’ anger of Brexit has led many to turn against the Conservatives and the legislative change may work to Labour’s advantage.
Richard Tice, who was the leader of the Reform Party until he passed the mantle back to Farage last week, writes in today’s Telegraph that “a vote for Sunak is a vote for Labour”. Tice states that Reform is outperforming the Tories on “policy, trust and conviction” and outlined the party's aim to accelerate to victory in as many as forty seats over the last three weeks of the election campaign.
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