General election: Boris Johnson set for majority of 68 seats as Labour collapses - poll
Boris Johnson would take a comfortable majority new polling predicts, with Labour losing more than 50 seats compared with 2017.
Thursday 28 November 2019 13:17, UK
The Conservatives are set to win 359 seats according to a new poll, giving Boris Johnson an overall majority of 68.
The MRP poll for The Times also puts Labour on 211 seats, a loss of more than 50 MPs. In the last parliament, they started with 262 seats.
Its method is seen as authoritative because it predicted a hung parliament was likely in 2017 - and was proved correct.
Pollsters questioned 100,000 people over the course of seven days and adapted answers to account for age, gender, voting history and local political circumstances in individual constituencies.
It suggests the Conservatives could pick up 44 seats from Labour on 12 December, while the SNP would recover some losses in Scotland, gaining eight seats compared to 2017.
A total of 326 seats are needed for one party to have a majority in the House of Commons.
It comes after polling by Sky News and YouGov showed Mr Johnson was holding onto his lead and it was the Liberal Democrats who appeared to be squeezed.
Labour attempted to shift the focus of campaigning today, showing unredacted documents which detailed trade talks between the UK and the US, which they claimed put the NHS "up for sale".
The allegations were batted away by the Conservatives, and it failed to refocus attention from a poorly received interview Mr Corbyn had with Andrew Neil on the BBC on Tuesday night, in which he repeatedly refused to apologise for the treatment of Jewish members in the Labour Party.
That led to #Corbyncarcrash trending on Twitter. Mr Johnson has been accused of running scared of a similar interview, having so far failed to agree a date with the broadcaster.
Sam Coates, Sky News's deputy political editor, said: "Labour would lose seats across the North of England, they would even lose Sedgefield [Tony Blair's old seat].
"It suggests the Lib Dems might go up just one seat to 13, that would be a devastating result for Jo Swinson who was hoping to do much better.
"It shows no Brexit Party seats and one seat for the Greens.
"That would be a very solid result for the Conservatives - at the upper end of their hopes.
"But there's a caveat - we have two weeks to go. There's a squeeze going on, with Lib Dems votes squeezed, and some of that going to Labour. They might be worried that if that continues, it won't look so rosy on polling day."
Another poll, by The Telegraph and Savanta ComRes released tonight shows the race tightening, with Conservatives dropping a point compared with the weekend, and Labour gaining two, up to 34%, at the expense of the Lib Dems.
Seats at risk for Labour include Tom Watson's West Brom East seat, which he is vacating, and Caroline Flint's Don Valley seat.
In what could be an election night shocker, Dennis Skinner could lose Bolsover, a seat he has held since 1970.
The remain alliance doesn't look to be helping the Green Party, who would end up with the same number of MPs as they had before - one.
Several high profile independents like Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry, David Gauke and Frank Field could lose their seats.
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Chris Curtis, YouGov's political research manager said: "As expected, the key thing deciding the extent to which each of these seats is moving against Labour are how that seat voted in the European Union referendum. In the seats that voted most strongly to Leave in 2016 (60% or more in favour of departing the EU), the swing to the Conservatives is over 6%.
"This is allowing the Tories to overturn quite substantial majorities in places like West Bromwich East, the seat held until recently by Tom Watson, and Don Valley, the seat currently held by Caroline Flint.
"The only silver lining for Labour is that there are still 30 seats where it is currently 5% or less behind the Tories. If it can manage to squeeze the gap over the coming fortnight it may be able to paste over the cracks in their so-called Red Wall."
While this is the same method that last predicted a hung parliament, it did so closer to polling day in 2017.
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