Conservatives on the brink: Poll predicts 1997-style electoral wipeout, granting Labour a 120-seat majority
15 January 2024, 07:33
The Conservative Party is facing the prospect of an electoral wipeout on the scale of their 1997 defeat to Labour, the result would potentially see Sir Keir Starmer land a 120-seat majority, the most authoritative opinion poll in five years has predicted.
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A YouGov poll involving 14,000 respondents indicates that Rishi Sunak's Tories might retain as few as 169 seats, allowing Sir Keir Starmer's Labour to assume power with 385 seats.
The seat-by-seat polls suggests that every red wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 would be lost, while the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, would be one of eleven cabinet ministers to lose their seats.
The poll, published in the Telegraph, found that the Tories would win 196 fewer seats than in 2019, more than the 178 John Major lost in 1997.
Despite not winning any seats, the polling implies that Reform UK's support would be the decisive factor in 96 Tory losses.
The SNP would also experience setbacks.
The research was commissioned by a group of Tory donors from the Conservative Britain Alliance and backed by the former Brexit minister Lord Frost. He claimed that the only way to avoid the likely defeat was “to be as tough as it takes on immigration”.
Concerns within the Conservative Party regarding their electoral prospects under Mr Sunak are likely to intensify. Simon Clarke, a former Cabinet minister under Liz Truss, expressed that the outcome would be a "disaster."
"The time for half measures is over," he wrote on social media. "We either deliver on small boats or we will be destroyed."
The poll – obtained using the same method that has accurately predicted the results of several recent elections – will pile pressure on Mr Sunak to pivot to a far more conservative agenda as he faces a crucial vote on his Rwanda policy this week.
The PM is facing a rebellion by more than 50 of his backbenchers, who want the bill toughened up. But he has been warned by centrist MPs that they cannot vote for the bill if he gives in to the rebels.
Among other prominent Tories reportedly on track to lose their seats are Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, and Attorney General Victoria Prentis.
