New polling suggests that CON London strongholds could be vulnerable to Stop Brexit candidates
The Survation Kensington poll in the chart above has been commissioned by a body called the Stop Brexit Alliance (SBA) to rest the feasibility of putting forward candidates in London CON strongholds where neither Labour not the Lib Dens have any chance, My understanding is that other similar seats are being looked at and hopefully we will have the data within the next few days.
The standard voting question in this poll found CON 46%; LAB 29%: LD 16.6%: UKIP 1.3%: GRN 6.9%. The figures in the chart are when the addition of a Stop Brexit candidate was added.
Opinion on Brexit in the constituency remains strong. When asked how people would vote if there was another referendum the sample split REMAIN 69.2% to LEAVE 24.3%.
One of the driving forces behind the Stop Brexit Alliance is a former CON MEP, John Stevens, who stood in the 1999 Kensington and Chelsea by-election and beat Nigel Farage to second place at GE2010 in Buckingham . He would be the candidate in Kensington if it is decided to go ahead.
What would make a huge difference to the initiative is if the LDs stood aside.
Single seat polling is very challenging for pollsters and did not come out of GE2015 well. Add onto that the hypothetical nature of the question here and we have to treat this with some caution. But we do know that London was overwhelmingly for Remain and pro-Leave incumbents, like Victoria Borthwick in Kensington, could possibly be at risk.
I am told that the poll dataset will be made available on the Survation website. Fieldwork was from April 25th to April 27th.