A massive 42% of healthcare workers intended to vote Conservative in yesterday’s local elections.
Two in five healthcare workers voted for the Conservative Party in this week’s local elections, according to a recent poll.
A survey of 1,843 healthcare workers undertaken by NursingNotes reveals that a massive 42% intended to vote Conservative in yesterday’s local elections.
Just 32% of those surveyed said they intended to vote for the Labour Party.
In stark contrast, a previous survey revealed that 82% of healthcare workers intended to vote for the Labour Party in the 2019 General Election while the Conservative Party picked up just 6% of the vote.
Historically left-leaning workforce.
Local independent candidates picked up 18% of the votes, with the remainder shared between the Green Party, SNP and other minority parties.
The surprising news comes as the historically left-leaning workforce look for “strong and stable leadership” during the pandemic who will “focus on the economy” in the coming months.
One nurse justified her decision on the survey; “The Government’s top priority must be to fix the economy and boost employment. I (reluctantly) voted for my local Conservative candidate as I know they will do what needs to be done to do this.”
“While Labour is the party of the NHS, the Conservatives are the part [sic] of the economy,” she concluded.
The news is a particular surprise after the Conservative-controlled Government told NHS workers earlier this year that a 1% pay rise was all it could afford. Labour has been criticised by many healthcare workers for being ambiguous on the topic of an NHS pay rise after they have continuously failed to back a national pay campaign.
In line with the narrative.
Anthony Johnson, Lead Organiser for the left-leaning grassroots campaigning group Nurses United UK, responded to the results; “As nurses, we know that top line statistics are easily misinterpreted. This polling shows that nurses, like the rest of the electorate, vote in line with the narrative that is given to them.
“To change it, for our own interests and those of our NHS, it is up to our unions to undertake a level of political education that has not been seen for decades.
“From our pay and conditions to the discrimination we face at work, everything is affected by politics, national and local. It is up to the institutions that represent us to show how we can influence that as politics doesn’t just stop once an election is over.”