Poll predicts record win for Labour Party at UK election

The Conservatives, who have been in power for the last 14 years, were predicted to win just 64 seats, which would be the fewest since the party was founded in 1834

By Reuters

July 03, 2024

British opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer greets a person as he attends a Labour general election campaign event, in Norton Canes, Britain on July 2, 2024. — Reuters

LONDON: Britain’s Labour Party is set to sweep to power with a record number of seats at Thursday’s national election, a forecast by polling company Survation showed on Tuesday.

Survation’s central scenario showed Keir Starmer’s Labour winning 484 of the 650 seats in parliament, far more than the 418 won by the party’s former leader Tony Blair in his famous 1997 landslide win and the most in its history.

The Conservatives, who have been in power for the last 14 years, were predicted to win just 64 seats, which would be the fewest since the party was founded in 1834.

The right-wing Reform UK party were projected to win seven seats.

The Survation analysis used the Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) technique that estimates public opinion at a local level from large national samples. Pollsters describe it as a model that uses polling data, rather than a poll itself.

Other MRP analyses have shown smaller margins of victory for Labour, but none have shown a different overall outcome.

Earlier, a regular poll by Redfield and Wilton Strategies which measured vote share nationwide showed a slight narrowing in Labour’s lead, but still put the party on course for a comfortable victory.