The Tories are set to lose the General Election spectacularly with Labour securing a 194 seat majority, a bombshell poll has found.
YouGov and Sky News predict a historic wipeout for Rishi Sunak as Keir Starmer sweeps into No10. The poll predicts Labour will get a massive 422 seats, while the Tories languish far behind on 140 – losing a huge 225 MPs. If this is correct it would see Labour outperform even the 1997 landslide under Tony Blair.
Big names tipped to be kicked out include Cabinet members Penny Mordaunt, Jeremy Hunt, Grant Shapps, Mel Stride and Mark Harper. Mr Starmer would win the second largest majority in British political history, behind only Stanley Baldwin’s 210 in 1924.
It comes after Mr Sunak was dealt another hammer blow with news that Nigel Farage intends to stand for Reform UK. Speaking at a press conference in central London, Mr Farage said it is a foregone conclusion that Mr Starmer will become Prime Minister in less than five weeks.
Mr Farage’s decision is expected to eat still further into the Tory vote share and could cost Mr Sunak even more seats. YouGov’s poll predicts that Mr Farage’s Reform UK party will not win a single seat – but today’s announcement could change that.
The Lib Dems are tipped to win 48 seats, up from just 15 when Parliament was dissolved last month. The SNP also faces wipeout in Scotland, returning just 17 MPs – down from 43. The Green Party and Plaid Cymru are each expected to get two.
The YouGov poll – which uses data from almost 60,000 voters – uses the MRP (Multi-level Regression and Poststratification) technique – which was the first to flag that Theresa May wouldn’t get an overall majority in 2017. Mr Sunak has faced anger within the Tory fold after calling a snap election on July 4. Last week Mr Starmer claimed the PM had tried to set an ambush for Labour – but ended up setting one for himself.
Last time the UK went to the polls in 2019, Boris Johnson’s Tories won 365 seats while Labour under Jeremy Corbyn got 202. The projected result would see Mr Sunak win 62 fewer seats than the then-Labour leader managed in what was a catastrophic result.
Moments before the poll dropped, Mr Farage predicted the Tories will be in opposition after the General Election, stating: “They are split down the middle on policy, and frankly right now they don’t stand for a damn thing. So our aim in this election is to get many, many millions of votes. And I’m talking far more votes than Ukip can got back in 2015.”
He continued: “When people start to realise in the red wall, with Reform second to Labour, when they start to realise that actually in those seats, it’s a Conservative vote that’s a vote for Labour, it’s a Conservative vote that is a wasted vote, then I think we might just surprise everybody.”