Three years to the day since Brits woke up to a thumping Conservative majority, a new poll suggests the party could soon be wiped out in the North. The Tories broke new ground in the 2019 General Election, breaking up many of Labour's 'Red Wall' heartlands on a promise to 'get Brexit done', as they secured their biggest election win in 32 years.
By the time the sun rose on December 13, the day after the UK went to the polls, Jeremy Corbyn had already announced his resignation as Labour leader with the party 60 seats lighter in the House of Commons. Greater Manchester had nine Conservative MPs - even in Leigh, which had never been represented by a Tory since the constituency was created in 1885.
But now, three years on, a bombshell new poll suggests the Conservatives will not only be booted out of office at the next General Election - but they could also be left without a single MP in the North of England. The new MRP poll from Savanta and Electoral Calculus announced today gives Labour a whopping 314 seat majority in the House of Commons.
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With 48% of the vote to 28% for the Conservatives, the poll predicts Labour would end up with 482 seats, 280 more than after the last General Election. The Tories would have just 69 seats according to the poll, 296 less than after the December 2019 vote.
The prediction sees Labour winning every single seat in the North except one in Cumbria - Westmorland and Lonsdale - which would be held by the Liberal Democrats. It also means that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would lose his seat in Richmond, North Yorkshire.
It follows a turbulent year in British politics - with Boris Johnson ousted after strings of scandals including 'Partygate', Liz Truss lasting just weeks in office amid a 'mini-budget' which spooked the markets, and Mr Sunak left to pick up the pieces while Brits battle the soaring cost of living. Chris Hopkins, political research director at Savanta, says 'even the most optimistic Labour supporter' could not have predicted their opponents' collapse in the latest research - but warns the party against complacency.
He said: “But we must still express caution. Many seats going to Labour in this model, including a few that could be deemed ‘Red Wall’, still indicate a 40% or higher chance of remaining Conservative, and while that would have little impact on the overall election result, it does show that if Rishi Sunak can keep narrowing that Labour lead, point-by-point, the actual results come 2024 could look very different to this nowcast model.”
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If the poll is correct, former PM Mr Johnson would lose his seat, although Ms Truss would hold onto hers. The poll also predicts the SNP to have 55 seats, the Liberal Democrats to have 21, four seats for Plaid Cymru and one for the Green Party.
Martin Baxter, founder and CEO of Electoral Calculus, added: "This is an interesting poll, because it is the first MRP we have done since the Conservatives slid so far behind Labour, and therefore we have very little to compare it with. MRP results are different to applying uniform national swing (UNS) to the 2019 General Election baseline.
"The UNS prediction would give the Conservatives about 24 more seats than this model. Previous elections suggests that MRP is usually more accurate than UNS predictions, but we are in uncharted electoral waters and uncertainty is higher than usual.”
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