Rishi Sunak is heading for a 1997-style election wipeout, a major poll warned last night.
The survey of 14,000 voters found the Tories are on course to lose nearly 200 seats at this year’s General Election, giving Sir Keir Starmer a 120-seat majority.
The projected result would be the biggest collapse in support for a governing party since 1906, with an 11.5 per cent swing to Labour.
At least 11 Cabinet ministers would lose seats, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Mr Hunt’s constituency, South West Surrey, would be lost to the Liberal Democrats, the poll suggests.
This would make him the first Chancellor to lose their seat at an election, with other Tory MPs including Penny Mordaunt, Grant Shapps and Sir Iain Duncan Smith, also at risk.
The survey of 14,000 voters found the Tories are on course to lose nearly 200 seats at this year’s General Election, giving Sir Keir Starmer a 120-seat majority
Rishi Sunak is heading for a 1997-style election wipeout, a major poll warned last night
At least 11 Cabinet ministers would lose seats, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt
The YouGov study also suggests the Reform Party could hinder Tory fortunes. Although Reform is not forecast to win any seats, it could cost Mr Sunak 96 MPs – the difference between a Labour landslide and a hung parliament.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage yesterday said he was ‘seriously considering’ a return to frontline politics after a survey, by Survation, suggested he could well win a seat when Britain goes to the polls.
According to The Telegraph, every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost and the Scottish National Party is predicted to lose almost half of its seat to Labour – keeping only 25.
The Tories will win 196 fewer seats than in 2019, which is more than Sir John Major lost in 1997.
The YouGov pol will be looked at closely by Conservative MPs who believe that a change of leader might be the only way to avoid disaster at the general election.
It was commissioned by the Conservative Britain Alliance and carried out by YouGov.
The projected result would be the biggest collapse in support for a governing party since 1906, with an 11.5 per cent swing to Labour
If the poll is to be believed, the election result would be the biggest collapse in support of a governing party since 1906.
Sir Keir Starmer would be looking at at least 10 years in government because no party with such a sizeable majority has lost the following election.
Lord Frost, who writes for The Telegraph, said the polls findings were ‘stunningly awful’ for the party and that tactical voting and a decision by Nigel Farage to return to politics could leave the Tories facing an ‘extinction event’.
He said the only way to avoid defeat was ‘ to be as tough as it takes’ on immigration and to ‘reverse the debilitating increases in tax’ among other things.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said he would stand in the newly-formed constituency of Godalming and Ash at the next election.
According to The Telegraph, Mr Hunt has a majority of 8,817 at present, but the poll predicts that the seat will go to the Liberal Democrats with 35 per cent of the vote.
Meanwhile, Penny Mordaunt – the MP for Portsmouth North – is set to lose her seat to Labour, who are looking to attain 26 per cent of the vote.
The Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, would expect to be in a safe seat having been the MP for Welwyn Hatfield since 2005.
However, the YouGov poll predicts that he will lose to Labour who will pull in 40 per cent of the vote.
MP Lee Anderson, who took his seat from Labour’s Gloria De Piero in 2019, is expected to lose his seat to Labour this time around. He is expected to take just 23 per cent of the vote.
It is predicted that Jacob Rees Mogg will cling on to his seat by just 1 per cent of the vote – 33 per cent in comparison to Labour’s 32 per cent. But Liberal Dem voters could topple him if they lent their votes to Labour.