“An earthquake”: the political columnist for Channel 4, Paul McNamara, does not go by the back of the spoon… It must be said that the figures of the poll unveiled Tuesday by the British television channel are come dangerously close to the highest points of the Richter scale. According to this opinion poll by the Findoutnow and Electoral Calculus institutes, the Tories could occupy only 90 seats in the House if the elections were held today, and Labor 461. Shocking figures as the next elections approach general, scheduled for the course of 2024. An electoral rout which, according to this same poll, would see the Labor opposition return triumphantly to the government from which it was ousted in 2010 after the defeat of Gordon Brown, who remained in this the last left-wing prime minister in the UK.
In detail, this poll carried out during the summer on a representative sample of 11,000 Britons shows that if the elections were held today, the Conservatives would only win 24% of the vote, against 46% for Labor – the rest being divided between the Liberal Democrats, the Reform UL party, and the Greens. In the last general election in 2019, Boris Johnson won 45% of the vote as leader of the Conservatives, against 33% for Labour.
But it is above all the projection in number of seats that has something to panic Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his supporters: according to this poll, the Tories would have only 90 seats left in the House, 275 less than in 2019 Labor would have 461, or 258 more – and would therefore have a very solid absolute majority.
Channel 4 also believes that several Conservative ministers could lose their seats, starting with Rishi Sunak himself. But also Defense Minister Ben Wallace, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden… in total, more than fifteen ministers currently in government could be ousted.
The last local elections, which were a first test for Rishi Sunak, the Tories had indeed suffered serious setbacks, which did not reassure the party as the legislative elections approached. Its results in May were therefore not glorious, even if they were expected as the slope to climb back is steep after the damage of the end of the Johnson era and the disastrous Liz Truss episode. In these elections where some 8,000 seats were up for renewal in 230 constituencies, Labor – but also the Liberal Democrats and the Greens – had benefited from the wear and tear of a party in business for thirteen years.
