British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is expected to suffer a heavy defeat in the next general election, according to a forecast released on Wednesday that shows Labor will secure more than 400 seats in parliament.
The YouGov model, which predicts the results for each parliamentary seat, shows that the Tories (Conservatives) will elect just 155 MPs and Labor 403. The House of Commons has 650 seats.
The polls give Labor a solid double-digit lead over the Conservatives. Sunak has said he will call an election sometime in the second half of the year.
The Conservatives have governed, either in partnership with other parties or on their own, since 2010, but in that time five prime ministers have changed, as the referendum on Britain’s exit from the European Union and scandals surrounding the handling of the pandemic led to constant political turmoil.
A defeat greater than that of 1997
The YouGov survey shows Sunak is still struggling to recover after announcing tax breaks last month ahead of May’s local elections.
Based on the latest forecast model, the Conservatives will do slightly worse and Labor slightly better than the previous forecast, in January.
According to YouGov, the Tories will secure fewer seats than the 165 they won in 1997, when they suffered a crushing defeat by Tony Blair’s Labor Party. Some of the high-ranking officials who could lose their seats are the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt and the party’s leadership candidate Penny Mordod.
Labour, on the other hand, will not be able to overcome that victory of Blair, who in 1997 secured 418 seats.
YouGov interviewed 18,761 British adults between March 7-27. This number is much higher than usual polls, and the company says that with this method it correctly predicted the outcome of the previous two elections.
Source: RES-MPE
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