Keir Starmer sent 'clear message' by new voter poll in election warning to Labour leader

Sir Keir Starmer has failed to convince voters of his leadership qualities despite Labour’s lead in polls, a survey of 2,000 voters has found.

The Daily Express's new monthly poll tracking the opinions of the nation asked people whether they would prefer Sir Keir or Rishi Sunak to lead the country in several scenarios.

Sir Keir has yet to inspire confidence in his response to a potential terror attack in a major UK city, or in the event a hostile state declared war on Britain.

But for each question, more voters opted for “neither” of the two party leaders.

If there was the “collapse of civilisation as we know it”, 25 percent would want Sir Keir to be leader of the country. 14 percent would prefer Mr Sunak and 43 percent would want neither.

Lachlan Rurlander, from polling consultancy Whitestone Insight, said: "These results suggest that the election result is pretty well baked into voters’ current intentions and it is likely to take a major upset to alter significant levels of support for the major parties."

"It is particularly striking that having been in power for two years as prime minister, Rishi Sunak is still not seen as a better leader than his main opponent who has never held ministerial office."

"That said, across every area tested against each leader, the most popular option was ‘neither’ reiterating the fact that Sir Keir Starmer has not sealed the deal with voters in terms of his own leadership qualities."

Sir Keir got 30 percent of the vote when asked about a preferred leader in the event of a UK terror attack, compared to 23 percent for Mr Sunak and 30 percent with neither.

When it came to overall voting intention, Labour retained their lead with 44% of the vote. The Tories got 24 percent and Reform got 11 percent.

This would translate into 102 seats for the Conservatives and 472 seats for Labour, a majority for Labour of 294.

Tory pollster Lord Hayward said: “There is a clear message in that if Starmer does not register the same sort of percentages as the Labour party is registering, that is displaying a lack of support for him per se.

"They are opting for the Labour party for a number of different reasons. But it is striking that in most polls, although he leads Sunak, he does not lead Sunak by the same margin as the Labour party leads the Conservative party.

“There’s no question, he displays an uncertainty amongst the electorate about him as a potential prime minister.”