Bad News for Labour Party in EU opinion survey

international | eu | news report Thursday June 26, 2008 16:04 by mind the step

Voters have minds of their own- De Rossa worried

The EU commissioned Gallup, a very highly regarded polling organisation to dom a flash survey of the Irish electorate just after the Lisbon Treaty referendum. The results were widely released, but what was kept under wraps until today was a question about party support among voters.

Respondents in the telephone survey were asked if they usually supported and/or voted for a particular political party. There was no surprise that Sinn Fein supporters backed the No side overwhelmingly, but senior figures in the Labour Party must be pondering what it means when a majority of their supporters vote against the way the party leadership wants them to.

The Labour Party has yet to decide who will run for the EU Parliament elections next year. This poll will certainly make them think twice about who their candidates are.

These figures were contained in a report marked confidential which was compiled from the results of a flash Eurobarometer opinion poll conducted by Gallup.

LISBON: party supporters' votes
PARTY YES NO

Fianna Fáil (41% of those surveyed said they support FF) 60% 40%
Fine Gael (20% of those surveyed said they support FG) 51% 49%
Labour (9% of those surveyed said they support Labour) 45% 55%
Green Party (6% of those surveyed said they support the Greens) 43% 57%
Sinn Féin (6% of those surveyed said they support Sinn Féin) 5% 95%

Progressive Democrats (2% of those surveyed said they support PDs) 69% 31%

All others 39% 61%

(17% of those surveyed said they didn't remember or didn't answer)