Rishi Sunak is predicted to lose his seat at the general election on the 4th of July, in an outcome that would make him the first prime minister ever to do so.
A new poll for The Telegraph finds that the Conservatives are on track to lose 53 seats, with around three-quarters of the cabinet voted out.
The Liberal Democrats will only just miss out on becoming the second largest party in the House of Commons, according to the Savanta and Electoral Calculus polling analysis. Sir Ed Davey’s party is placed on 50 seats, 3 MPs behind the Conservative Party.
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The poll came as Michael Portillo, a former cabinet minister, warned said that several senior Conservative candidates could “suffer the same fate” as he did in 1997 on the 4th of July.
Portillo, a former Conservative cabinet minister, had been considered as a potential future party leader and prime minister, before he shockingly lost his seat at the 1997 election.
Portillo told GB News on Wednesday evening: “It seems that many Conservative incumbents could suffer the same fate [as me]. They know already that over the last five years of Tory government people have ceased to listen to what their party has to say.”
A prime minister losing a seat at a general election, however, would be unprecedented.
‘Portillo moments’ to be prominent feature of election night, says Michael Portillo
According to Savanta’s findings, Rishi Sunak is set to lose his Richmond seat to Labour — although the this race is among those the pollster says is still in the balance given the close margins.
In total, Labour is forecast to have 516 seats and an estimated House of Commons majority of 382.
A majority of 382 would be twice that recorded by Sir Tony Blair in New Labour’s landslide victory at the 1997 general election.
The SNP, according to the Savanta poll for The Telegraph, is predicted to slump to just eight MPs, down from 48 in 2019.
The polling appears to indicate that the Conservative Party‘s warnings of a Labour “super-majority” are accurate.
Speaking last week, defence secretary Grant Shapps argued that handing Labour a “super-majority” would give Keir Starmer “unchecked” power in government.
He told Times Radio: “I think the simple point is that if you want to make sure that in this next government, whoever forms it, that there is a proper system of accountability, then we would argue that you don’t want to have somebody receive a super majority.”
He added: “And in this case, of course, the concern would be that if Keir Starmerwere to go into No 10 — it will either be Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer, there is no other outcome to this election — and if that power was in some way unchecked it would be very bad news for people in this country.”
Shapps said this would amount to “a blank cheque approach, allowing someone to do anything they wanted, particularly when their particular set of plans are so vague.”
Speaking on Wednesday morning, work and pensions secretary Mel Stride joined his colleagues in warning of a significant Labour victory.
He said: “If you take these polls and extrapolate that into a result, you could end up seeing a Labour government with 450 or 460 seats, the largest majority virtually in the history of this country.”
Elsewhere, Welsh secretary David TC Davies, speaking to The Sun’s Never Mind the Ballots programme, has said: “I look at the opinion polls right — can’t hide, can’t run away. … They never get it 100 per cent right. But they’re clearly pointing at a large Labour majority. I don’t know how large that will be. But you know, I’m not stupid either. You cannot dismiss every single opinion poll”.
“Keir Starmer will walk into Downing Street”, he added.
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