The Tories are heading for an “electoral wipeout” on the scale of their 1997 defeat by Labour, according to a poll.
The survey by You Gov found that the Tories will retain just 169 seats, while Labour will “sweep to power” with 385. Every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost, it predicted, in the “biggest collapse in support for a governing party since 1906”.
In Greater Manchester, the seat currently held by Sir Graham Brady Altrincham and Sale West would fall to Labour while Mary Robinson’s Cheadle Constituency would fall to the Lib Dems and Andy Burnham’s old Leigh constituency which fell to the Tories in 2019 would return to Labour with all the seats in Bury and Bolton also turning red after 2019’s red wall collapse
The Tories will win 196 fewer seats than in 2019, more than the 178 Sir John Major lost in 1997 with cabinet ministers including the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt losing their seats
Writing for The Telegraph, Lord Frost, the Conservative peer, described the poll’s findings as “stunningly awful” for the party, saying it was facing “a 1997-style wipeout – if we are lucky”.
He said a combination of tactical voting and any decision by Nigel Farage to return to frontline politics could leave the Conservatives facing “an extinction event”.
