If forecast figures have even some bearing on reality, this election will write history in a way like no other. Britain’s Conservative and Unionist Party – the most successful, long-standing, established political force in the Western world – looks like it will be brought to book in 2024 in staggering fashion. It might all happen in such a way that does not make recovery impossible, but sorely improbable for the foreseeable future.
The Britain Predicts final forecast has the Conservatives on course to shed 277 Members of Parliament, falling to just 114 seats in the House of Commons. Keir Starmer – unlike David Cameron or Tony Blair – doesn’t command massive public approval. But he is nonetheless set to bring the Labour Party to its joint-best ever election total with 418 MPs, 237 seats up from its decisive defeat in 2019 – and coincidentally the same figure achieved by Tony Blair in 1997.
The Liberal Democrats are polling well, benefitting mainly from the free-fall collapse in support for the Conservatives in the south of England. Britain Predicts sees the party winning 63 seats, up 55 from their current total. Reform, the insurgent force of this election, started the race with around 10 or 11 per cent of popular support.
They now finish it with 16 per cent. On one rendering of this analysis they could be on course for six seats. Nigel Farage, eighth time lucky in his bid for the House of Commons, is on course for an easy win in Clacton.
The Scottish Nationalist.
