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Tories Facing 1997-Style General Election Wipeout

by Richard Eldred
15 January 2024 7:00 AM

A just published YouGov poll suggests a looming electoral disaster for the Conservative Party, predicting a major defeat akin to their 1997 setback. The Telegraph has the details.

The YouGov survey of 14,000 people forecasts that the Tories will retain just 169 seats, while Labour will sweep to power with 385 – giving Sir Keir Starmer a 120-seat majority.

Every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost, the poll indicates, and the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will be one of 11 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats.

The Tories will win 196 fewer seats than in 2019, more than the 178 Sir John Major lost in 1997.

The poll exposes the huge influence that Reform UK is set to have on the election result. The Right-wing party would not win any seats, but support for it would be the decisive factor in 96 Tory losses – the difference between a Labour majority and a hung Parliament.

The result would be the biggest collapse in support for a governing party since 1906, with an 11.5% swing to Labour. 

It would all but guarantee Sir Keir’s party at least a decade in government, as no party with such a sizeable majority has ever lost the subsequent election.

There is also bad news for the Scottish National Party, which is predicted to lose almost half of its seats to Labour, retaining only 25.

The poll – obtained using the same method that has accurately predicted the results of several recent elections – will add to pressure on Rishi Sunak to pivot to a far more conservative agenda as he faces a crucial vote on his Rwanda policy this week.

It will also be studied closely by Tory MPs who believe a change of leader before this year’s election is the only way to avoid disaster.

Writing for the Telegraph, Lord Frost, the Conservative peer, described the poll’s findings as “stunningly awful” for the party, saying it was facing “a 1997-style wipeout – if we are lucky”.

He said a combination of tactical voting and any decision by Nigel Farage to return to frontline politics could leave the Conservatives facing “an extinction event”.

Lord Frost added that the only way to avoid the likely defeat was “to be as tough as it takes on immigration, reverse the debilitating increases in tax, end the renewables tax on energy costs – and much more”.

James Johnson, a former No. 10 pollster, said the figures suggested any possible path to victory for the Conservatives had “all but vanished”.

He said the data showed the Tories were haemorrhaging the votes of Leave supporters who backed them in 2019 and would be punished by those voters “if they do not get tough on migration – fast”.

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: If the Tories don’t act, the party will be reduced to a smoking ruin, warns David Frost in the Telegraph.

Stop Press 2: Conservative Home’s Paul Goodman indicates that the timing of YouGov’s poll is part of a larger plot to unseat Rishi Sunak. The game’s afoot, he says.

Tags: Conservative PartyDavid FrostGeneral electionOpinion PollsReform UKYouGov

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