Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party is set to secure a 68-seat majority at the general election, an influential YouGov poll for the Times has forecast.
The poll also suggests Jeremy Corbyn’s
Labour Party could win just 211 seats.
If the
election were held this Thursday, YouGov’s poll puts the Tories on 359 seats, a gain of 42 on 2017, while Labour would lose 51 seats and the Lib Dems would gain just one to secure 13 constituencies.
The SNP would win 43 seats, a gain of eight, while Wales’ Plaid Cymru and the Green Party would remain static with four seats and one seat respectively.
In conducting the research, YouGov said it had interviewed around 100,000 people over the last seven days.💥 💥 💥 @YouGov MRP projection published by @thetimesCon MAJORITY of 68Con 359 (+42)Lab 211 (-51)LD 13 (+1)Brexit 0 (-)Green 1 (-)SNP 43 (+8)PC 4 (-)Other 1 (-)Tories breakthrough in Midlands. Lib Dems stall. Disaster for Labour.DETAILS:https://t.co/HY2s8uhuTbpic.twitter.com/VWwPqz6ZcM— Matt Chorley (@MattChorley) November 27, 2019The poll is seen as significant as it accurately forecast the hung parliament in the 2017 general election, and even correctly projected that marginal seats including Kensington and
Chelsea and Canterbury would swing from the Conservatives to the Labour Party.
YouGov used a computer model known in the polling industry as MRP (or multilevel regression and post-stratification), which analyses the specific demographics of each seat.
In the poll published on Wednesday night, it warned Labour’s “red wall” is crumbling and projected the Tories will pick up 44 seats from Labour including Tom Watson’s vacated seat and Caroline Flint’s Don Valley seat.
They could also pick up Barrow and Furness, Wakefield, Ashfield, Bishop Auckland, Dudley North, Derby North, Bassetlaw, Great Grimsby, Stoke-on-Trent North, Stoke-On-Trent Central, Crewe and Nantwich, Darlington, Scunthorpe, Workington, Ipswich and Leigh.
Boris Johnson’s party Tories could gain Norman Lamb’s seat in North Norfolk, it forecasts. Chris Curtis, political research manager for the pollster, said: “YouGov’s official election MRP model currently shows the Tories with a comfortable majority with almost all of those coming at the expense of Labour in the North and Midlands.
“As expected, the key thing deciding the extent to which each of these seats is moving against Labour are how that seat voted in the
European Union referendum. In the seats that voted most strongly to Leave in 2016 (60% or more in favour of departing the EU), the swing to the Conservatives is over 6%.
“This is allowing the Tories to overturn quite substantial majorities in places like West Bromwich East, the seat held until recently by Tom Watson, and Don Valley, the seat currently held by Caroline Flint.
“The only silver lining for Labour is that there are still 30 seats where it is currently 5% or less behind the Tories. If it can manage to squeeze the gap over the coming fortnight it may be able to paste over the cracks in their so-called Red Wall. But with just two weeks to go, time is running out for Labour.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost
UK on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.Related... Will Boris Johnson’s ‘Ant Man’ Tactics Get Him The Majority He Craves?
Boris Johnson Yet To Agree To
BBC Andrew Neil Interview
Jeremy Corbyn Claims 'Secret' Documents Prove NHS 'Up For Sale' To Donald Trump