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The Guardian discovers that "right-wing" views on Europe and immigration are quite popular

By Tim Montgomerie
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On a whole range of issues - including immigration - very few voters hold 'centrist' positions

On Saturday at the Victory 2015 Conference Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov published fascinating polling that disproved the nonsense idea that most voters inhabit a mythical centre ground. The reality is that voters have strong views on most subjects - strongly opposed, for example, to NHS privatisation and more immigration but very supportive of repatriation of powers from Europe and making the rich pay more into the national coffers.

We have another poll today - from ICM for The Guardian - which confirms that voters don't object to the Conservative Party adopting what are unhelpfully called right-wing policies...
  • By a majority of 67%-25%, voters across the spectrum say "the Conservatives would be more appealing if they took a tougher line with Europe"...
  • An even larger majority say the same about "a tougher line on immigration": 75%-21%...
  • Voters judge by 69%-24% that the Tories' appeal could be boosted by keeping "themselves on the side of traditional families".

As previous surveys have discovered - even large majorities of Labour voters support what pundits call right-wing views on Europe and immigration. A successful political party will occupy the whole political stage, not a narrow part of it... but I think I might have made this argument once or twice before.

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