Nearly half of Tory-voting drivers vow to ditch the party if fuel prices are raised in Wednesday’s Budget

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NEARLY half of Tory-voting motorists said they would ditch the party at the next election if the Chancellor hikes fuel duty in his Budget next week, a new poll has found.

A survey by the FairFuelUK campaign found only a quarter of motorists who backed the Tories in December would do so again if Rishi Sunak ends the decade-long fuel duty freeze.

If the Chancellor hikes fuel duty in his Budget next week half of Tory-voting motorists said they would ditch the party at the next election

HOAR’s Keep It Down campaign has demanded that fuel duty stays at 58p per litre
HOAR’s Keep It Down campaign has demanded that fuel duty stays at 58p per litre

And three in ten motorists who backed the Tories at the election said they would “reluctantly” vote for the party again if fuel duty is hiked.

Some 86 per cent of the 5,700 respondents to the poll said the would be “very angry” if fuel duty is hiked by the Chancellor next week.

The rest said they would be “irritated”.

The results deliver a stark warning to Boris Johnson amid heightening fears that he will authorise a 2p per litre rise from next month, which would be the first increase in ten years.

It reveals the electoral threat to the PM if he ditches his election pledge not to hike fuel duty, with many voters in the ‘Red Wall’ seats that handed him his election landslide dependent on their cars.

And Mr Johnson also faces a major backbench revolt if he goes ahead with the hike after 53 Tory MPs wrote a letter to the Chancellor warning him not to.

Howard Cox, founder of FairFuelUK who carried out the survey, warned: “Rishi Sunak should take heed that breaking Boris’s promise to freeze duty will lose his party support from those voters who may have loaned his boss their votes in the General Election.

“Nearly half said they’d not vote Conservative again, with 86 per cent seething with anger at such a betrayal.

“Only 2.6 per cent believe a hike in the levy will help reduce emissions.”

HOAR revealed last month that the Treasury was considering ending the freeze for the first time in a decade in order to raise £4 billion and bolster the Tory party’s green credentials.