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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Nicholas Cecil and Matt Watts

UK to head to polls as YouGov survey predicts Labour to win largest majority for any party since 1832

Labour is on track to win the largest majority of any party in modern history, a major new poll showed ahead of the country heading to the polls on Thursday.

Sir Keir Starmer will enjoy a majority of 212 - the biggest for any single party since 1832 - YouGov’s final large scale poll suggested, with Labour expected to win 431 seats.

The projection would see the Conservatives reduced to just 102 MPs, losing more than 70 per cent of the seats the party won five years ago. Sixteen of the 26 cabinet ministers still standing, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, are expected to lose their seats, the YouGov MRP poll of more than 42,000 people showed.

Several MPs mooted as potential successors to Rishi Sunak are also under threat, including Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt in Portsmouth North and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick in Newark.

In London, the Tories are set to see their seat tally of around 20 cut to just six, according to the poll findings.

They would hold onto only Old Bexley and Sidcup, Harrow East, Finchley and Golders Green, Romford, Hornchurch and Upminster, and Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner.

Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty kiss during his final rally (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

But in all these seats, apart from Old Bexley and Sidcup, the Tory lead is five points or less so they could easily swing to Labour.

London minister Greg Hands is set to lose in Chelsea and Fulham, as the Tories face wipe-out in Inner London, also seemingly heading for defeat in Cities of London and Westminster, and the new constituency of Kensington and Bayswater.

A number of the other seats that the Tories are set to lose, such as Orpington, are very much on a knife edge so they could do better than gaining just the six seat.

The Liberal Democrats are set to win three constituencies from the Tories, Wimbledon, Sutton and Cheam, and Carshalton and Wallington, doubling their number of seats in the capital, according to the poll.

So Labour would end up with 63 seats out of 75 in the city, with the Lib Dems and Conservatives both on six.

The Standard has compiled an interactive map of all 75 constituencies in London so people can learn more about the key battlegrounds and other seats.

Jeremy Corbyn could still pull off a shock win in Islington North, with the YouGov survey putting the former Labour leader, who is standing as an independent, on 38 per cent of the vote, just behind the Labour party’s candidate, local councillor Praful Nargund on 43 per cent.

In the national picture Sir Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrats are projected to get 72 seats, higher than their previous peak of 62 in 2005 under Charles Kennedy.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is set for three seats, while the Greens are on two seats. The SNP are set to drop from 48 seats in 2019 to 18 seats, according to YouGov.

It came as Sir Keir and Mr Sunak gave their final campaign speeches ahead of the nation going to the polls on Thursday.

The Labour leader gave his last speech of the election campaign at a community centre in Redditch.

Speaking to cheering activists for the final time before polls open, Sir Keir signed off saying: “Imagine a Britain moving forward together with a Labour government.

“That’s what we are fighting for, let’s continue that fight.

“If you want change, you have to vote for it.”

Meanwhile Prime Minister Mr Sunak, in what is expected to be his last night in the job, was joined by his parents and his wife Akshata Murty for the final stump speech of his campaign.

The Prime Minister stood for a photo with his family after giving a speech at Romsey Rugby Club, north of Southampton where he grew up.

“This underdog will fight to the final whistle,” Mr Sunak said during his last speech on the trail.

The Prime Minister urged Tory activists to continue campaigning, claiming they had “urgent work to do” to “save the UK” from a Labour government.

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