Most Brits do not actually care who the next Conservative leader is, according to a new poll.
In yet another humiliating twist for the Tories – just a month after their worst ever electoral defeat, Ipsos UK has found 62% of Brits surveyed were not interested in following who would replace Rishi Sunak.
To make matters worse, that includes 36% of Conservative voters.
The pollsters found none of the candidates are very well known among the British public, despite all of them holding ministerial roles at some point.
Just 45% of the 1,091 adults surveyed said they know a great deal or a fair amount about former home secretary Priti Patel, followed by 26% for shadow home secretary James Cleverly, and 24% for shadow housing secretary Kemi Badenoch.
The polling, which took place between August 2 and 5, also found 34% of the public said they do not favour any of the current candidates.
There was a narrow preference for Cleverly among those surveyed, with 18% suggesting he would do a good job, followed by Patel (17%) and shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat (17%).
Badenoch is slightly behind on 14%, putting her on par with former migration minister Robert Jenrick.
Meanwhile, 9% thought shadow pensions secretary Mel Stride would do a good job leading the opposition – which, unfortunately, is the same percentage of respondents who backed a candidate called “Stuart Lewis”, a fake politician added to the poll by Ipsos.
But, it’s not all doom and gloom for Stride.
While a whopping 44% of respondents said they thought Patel would do a bad job, (and 22% thought the same of Badenoch, 20% of Cleverly, 15% of Jenrick, 11% of Tugendhat), just 9% said thought Stride would also perform poorly.
Trinh Tu, UK managing director, public affairs, said: “This new poll suggests high level of public apathy about the Conservative leadership race.”
She added that Patel seems to be most divisive figure at the moment, but for the most part, “Britons are unfamiliar with the main candidates and say they do not care very much about who will emerge at the winner”.
Meanwhile, 65% said a backing from ex-PM Liz Truss would give that candidate the worst chance of winning.
Far fewer (46%) said Reform leader and MP Nigel Farage would have a negative effect on a candidate’s hopes of victory, and 44% said the same for ex-PM Boris Johnson.
Only former PM and Rishi Sunak’s foreign secretary David Cameron was seen as the one who could have a positive impact overall – 31% said it would worsen a candidate’s chances with an endorsement, compared to 32% who said it would improve.