2024 election: Tories set for 1997-style wipeout, major poll suggests
The Conservatives are facing an electoral wipeout along the lines of the 1997 Labour landslide, a key opinion poll has suggested.
Labour could win a 120-seat majority in the election expected to be held later this year, according to a YouGov survey reported by The Telegraph this morning.
While cabinet ministers, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan could lose their seats.
Following the poll, Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns posted on X, formerly Twitter, asking colleagues to join her in submitting letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak to 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady.
“Nothing to lose and we have a GE this year anyway,” she said. “Time to get our party back and be real Conservatives.”
Pollsters asked 14,000 Brits how they would vote if an election was held tomorrow – and the large sample size means the results can be calculated by constituency.
This makes it the clearest warning sign yet for the Tories ahead of an election, with the poll forecasting the party could hold onto just 169 seats and Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour on 385.
Commissioned by a Conservative donor bloc – the Conservative Britain Alliance – working with Lord Frost, it found every ‘red wall’ seat won by Boris Johnson in 2019 could be lost.
It would be an 11.5 per cent swing to Labour and mark the biggest collapse in support for a governing party since 1906.
Reform UK was not forecast to pick up a single seat but was described as playing a “decisive” role in 96 Tory lost seats. The SNP was also predicted to suffer in Scotland.
The poll used the multi-level regression and post-stratification method to determine results.
Writing in The Telegraph, Tory peer Lord Frost called the findings “stunningly awful” for the party, saying it was facing “a 1997-style wipeout – if we are lucky”.
Labour and the Conservative Parties have been contacted for comment.