Britain’s governing Conservative Party is facing a rout in the next general election expected in 2024, according to a new poll which shows prime minister Rishi Sunak is on course to lose his home constituency.
Keir Starmer’s Labour will win 482 seats in the House of Commons if a vote was held “tomorrow” while the Tories’ tally will plummet to an embarrassing 69, voting intention data analysed by the market research firm Savanta and Electoral Calculus said.
It would mean a gain of 280 seats for Labour and a 296-seat loss for the Tories. Labour with a vote share of 48 per cent will have 314 seats clear of the Conservatives which is predicted to manage a meagre 28 per cent ballots.
Liberal Democrats could win 21 seats, their highest since 2010, polling overall 11 per cent votes.
If the predictions hold, the Conservatives will lose all seats in north Lincolnshire including Sunak’s Richmond constituency.
A previous poll in September predicted a 56-seat lead for the opposition Labour over the governing party.
In 2019, the Tories had made inroads in northern England and the Midlands with former prime minister Boris Johnson’s promise to level up and deliver Brexit.
However, the latest poll shows the ruling party will concede all its gain in the so-called Red Wall constituencies – the seats which traditionally favoured the left-leaning Labour.
It is also set to lose all of the parliamentary constituencies in London and many in the South West.
Savanta’s multi-regression and poststratification (MRP) analysis involved online interviews with 6,237 adults in Great Britain during 2-5 December.
Its political research director Chris Hopkins said such was the Conservative collapse that even the most optimistic Labour supporters would not have expected it.
He, however, called for caution, saying many seats going to Labour still indicated a 40 per cent or higher chance of remaining Conservative. But it would have a negligible impact on the overall election outcome, he said.
The analysis showed if Sunak could keep narrowing the Labour lead, the actual results in 2024 could look “very different” from the forecast.
While Johnson quit as the prime minister earlier this year amid a string of Downing Street scandals, the Conservative party’s position was further complicated by his successor Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-budget in September which sent financial markets into turmoil.
Sunak took over as the head of government when the UK was predicted to slip into recession as the economy fought surging inflation that squeezed household savings.
