Labour on target for Commons majority of greater than 200 seats

Labour is on course to win the largest Commons majority in almost 200 years tomorrow as a new mega poll suggested Sir Kier Starmer’s party could win 431 seats in tomorrow’s election.

Despite Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson joining forces to warn against handing Labour a ‘supermajority’, a YouGov MRP survey of more than 42,000 people gives Sir Keir a majority of 212.

That would be the biggest margin for a party in the modern era of the Houses of Parliament since reform of the electoral laws in 1832.

The figure of 431 is very similar to the findings of a second mega poll by More in Common, which gave Labour 430 seats.

The Tories are forecast to end the election with just 102 seats, their worst ever result, with a low estimate of 78.

Some 16 Cabinet ministers are expected to lose their seats, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Several MPs mooted as potential successors to Mr Sunak are also under threat, including Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt in Portsmouth North and  former immigration minister Robert Jenrick in Newark. 

It comes after Sir Keir frantically tried to play down fears Labour will get ‘unchecked’ power today as the election campaigns enters its final dash for the line.

The Labour leader tried to quell mounting alarm that he is set for the biggest majority ever seen, insisting many seats will ‘go to the wire’ and polls do not predict the future. 

The twitchy message came as the PM makes a last-ditch effort to avert a complete Tory meltdown after getting a big boost from a joint appearance with Boris Johnson.

At a rally last night, Mr Johnson warned that Sir Keir would use a ‘sledgehammer’ majority to bring in ‘mandatory wokery’ and ‘uncontrolled immigration’.

Mr Sunak is using the last day of campaigning to visit previously safe seats in Hampshire – with apocalyptic polls suggesting many will fall to Labour and the Lib Dems. 

A massive Survation poll – conducted using the MRP method – found Reform splitting the right-wing vote will gift Sir Keir the largest Commons majority in history, while Tory numbers fall to a record low.

Touring broadcast studios this morning, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride acknowledged that the Conservatives are on track for a dire result. 

He said Labour is almost certain to get an ‘extraordinary landslide on a scale that has probably never, ever been seen in this country before’. 

However, the PM insisted Mr Stride had not ‘quite’ been conceding defeat – telling ITV‘s This Morning ‘what Mel was doing was warning of what a very large Labour majority, unchecked, would mean for people’.

He added: ‘I’m fighting hard for every vote.’

Other Tories privately insist that the reception on the doorstep has not been as bad as the polls indicate – and there have been glimmers of a narrowing in recent days, with the Reform surge seemingly ebbing.

As the UK braces to learn who will be in charge for the next five years: 

• There are claims Sir Keir will install Harriet Harman as the next head of the equalities watchdog, despite concerns over her support for gender ideology;
• Suella Braverman has effectively launched the Tory post-mortem saying the election is ‘over’ and high immigration was to blame for defeat;
• Mr Sunak has bizarrely insisted his favourite meal is ‘sandwiches’ during a This Morning interview;
• He also issued a warning to Sir Keir that he cannot be a ‘great dad’ and PM at the same time, after the Labour leader suggested he still wants to clock off on Friday evenings; 
• Nigel Farage is still trying to seal the deal with voters in Clacton, as Reform struggles to turn votes into seats;
• A poll has suggested the SNP could remain the biggest party in Scotland after a threat from Labour.  

Mr Johnson received a rapturous reception as he made a dramatic appearance at the central London rally last night.

During an impassioned speech, Mr Johnson called on voters flirting with backing Reform to ‘draw back from the brink’.

He labelled Nigel Farage a ‘Kremlin crawler’ and unleashed attacks on Labour’s ‘mandatory wokery’ and ‘uncontrolled immigration’, bluntly adding that people who ‘have a few thousand to spare’ and ‘actually want higher tax’ should vote red.

Mr Johnson swiped at Sir Keir saying it was ‘way past his bedtime’ after the Opposition leader admitted he tries to avoid working past 6pm on Fridays to spend time with his family.

Up until now the ex-PM had only endorsed specific Tory allies with video messages, as tensions linger with Mr Sunak over the latter’s resignation triggering his eviction from Downing Street.

The two men still did not appear together on stage last night. 

But playing down the ‘trivial’ differences between himself and his former Chancellor, Mr Johnson said he was a ‘glad when the PM asked for help’ and ‘could not say no’ because they both ‘love our country’.

On his first campaign stop of the day in Carmarthenshire, Sir Keir played down chatter about the scale of his victory, insisting that many seats will ‘go to the wire’. 

Asked if he was worried about Mr Johnson joining the Tory attack, he said: ‘Not in the slightest. I’ve been arguing that the last 14 years have been about chaos and division – and last night, they wheeled out the architect of chaos and division.

‘That just shows the desperate, negative place they’ve got to in their campaign.’

In his intervention last night, Mr Johnson hit out at Labour’s plans to hike taxes and said the party would not take a firm stance against Vladimir Putin, following his invasion of Ukraine. 

He went on to criticise Sir Keir for not being able to explain ‘the difference between a man and a woman’. 

‘He sits there with his mouth open like a stunned mullet,’ he said. 

Mr Johnson, who led the Tories to a landslide victory in 2019 against Jeremy Corbyn, added: ‘They can achieve nothing in this election except to usher in the most left-wing Labour government since the war with a huge majority, and we must not let it happen.

‘Don’t let the Putinistas deliver the Corbynistas. Don’t let Putin’s pet parrots give this entire country psittacosis – which is a disease you get by the way from cosying up to pet parrots.

‘Friends, if you actually – everybody if you actually want higher taxes next week, this year, if you feel you’ve got a few thousands to spare, then vote Labour on Thursday. If you want uncontrolled immigration and mandatory wokery, and pointless kowtowing to Brussels again, then go right ahead, make my day, vote for Starmer.

‘But if you want to protect our democracy and our economy and keep this country strong abroad by spending 2.5 per cent of our GDP on defence which Labour still refuses to commit to, then you know what to do, don’t you, everybody?

‘There’s only one thing to do – vote Conservative on Thursday my friends and I know you will. I know you will.’