Almost half a year after the General Election, Labour’s honeymood period hasn’t lasted long.
A new mega poll predicts they would face a wipeout in seats they recently gained if the poll were rerun today, despite securing a landslide on July 4.
The party would be predicted to lose some 200 seats, falling short of a majority, which would result in a hung parliament.
Analysis published in the Sunday Times will not make cheerful breakfast reading for Keir Starmer, as it sugests even Angela Rayner and Yvette Cooper would be beaten by upstart party Reform.
Although Labour would still just pip the Tories to the post with the most seats, it would have barely a third of the total available which would not be enough to govern.
This is a result which some are envisaging with relish, with a petition for a new election recently going viral with over three million signatures.
This weekend’s poll said Labour would lose 87 seats to the Tories, 67 to Reform, and 26 to the Scottish National Party.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch will not be celebrating either, as the main winner is Nigel Farage and his party Reform, which has been backed by billionaire Elon Musk.
Reform would win 72 seats, it predicted, compared to the five it holds today.
In 2024’s election, the renamed Brexit Party won 14.3% of the vote share, but the implied vote share would increase to 21%, snapping at the heels of Labour and the Tories which were put at 25% and 26% respectively.
The analysis also predicted health secretary Wes Streeting would lose his seat to an independent candidate, while energy Secretary Ed Miliband, defence secretary John Healey and education secretary Bridget Phillipson would also be sent packing.
To get the results, survey data of more than 11,000 people was used by the think tank More in Common.
It shows that our ‘first past the post’ system could struggle even more to reflect the actual feeling of the electorate.
With a party needing to gain over half the available seats to form a stable government, if the results hold true it could lead for an electoral headache the next time we go to the polls.
According to the analysis, here is how the result would go:
Labour: 228 seats, down from 412
Conservatives: 222 seats, up from 121
Reform: 72 seats, up from 5
Lib Dems: 58 seats, down from 72
Scottish National Party: 37 seats, up from 9
Independent: 8 seats, up from 6
Plaid Cymru: 4 seats, remaining the same
Green Party: 2 seats, down from 4
Some of the seats were too close to call in the survey, so there could still be surprises.
It comes after Labour won 411 out of 650 seats, but with fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn gained in 2017 in 2019 (with the latter result seen as a huge defeat).
Turnout this year was low at around 60%, indicating that while Labour did win across broad areas, it was not inspired by deep enthusiasm.
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