Last Tory standing? Conservatives face 'irrelevance' as election wipeout looms

Weight of scandals and poor government could leave the Tories out of power for a generation, leading pollster tells The National

Live updates: Follow the latest news on the UK general election

Britain's governing Conservatives face “total wipeout” in the approaching general election, being reduced to “an irrelevancy” in parliament, a leading polling analyst has told The National.

The world’s most successful election-winning machine is on the brink of losing power to the Labour party, possibly for a generation, with the Tories giving UK voters “very little reason to vote for them ever again,” said Chris Hopkins of Savanta. It would also cause a scramble for a new leader from a very small pool of MPs, with some potential candidates losing their seats.

That the Conservatives are going to lose power is widely accepted as a near certainty but the question now is just how many seats the party will manage to hold, with bookmakers putting the odds heavily in favour of less than 100.

That would eclipse the Tories' worst performance in modern political history, outdoing the elections in 1997 (165 seats) and 1906 (156 seats).

“We have to start getting used to the idea of a complete Conservative wipeout,” said Mr Hopkins.

On a good day, opinion polls give them around 170 seats, although the latest MRP survey of 20,000 people put this down to 140.

Reduced to irrelevancy

The most serious threat is posed by the surge of support for the hard-right Reform UK since its charismatic leader Nigel Farage announced he would stand for parliament, although this could be weakened by his comments on Nato and Ukraine and allegations of racism against some candidates.

People who voted for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in the 2019 election, when they won 365 seats, now have a choice of sticking with them, voting for Reform, returning to Labour, opting for the left-of-centre Liberal Democrats or simply staying at home on Thursday.

The impact will become clear on polling day, but it very much looks like Reform could account for a collapse in Tory seats, by taking up to 20 per cent of the vote.

UK general election campaigning – in pictures

That could leave the Tories with between 50 and 100 seats, said Mr Hopkins.

“There is massive potential for the Conservative Party to be reduced to almost an irrelevancy in parliament,” he said. “Nothing has gone right for them for a long time, both politically and mathematically. Plus, voters are very, very open to giving the Tories a kicking and I think that they're going to get it.”

Meanwhile, Labour is in line to record its highest number of seats with some polling companies giving the party 470 out of the total of 650.

This would give Keir Starmer's party a 290-seat majority – or a “supermajority” as the Conservatives refer to it – and may well guarantee that Labour remains in power for at least the next decade.

Tory fallout

The next question for the Conservatives will be choosing a new leader from among the MPs left in parliament after Rishi Sunak’s inevitable resignation, most likely on Friday.

The House of Commons will soon have a very different feel to it, with many big-hitting Conservatives in line for a fall including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Johnny Mercer, Liam Fox and Anne-Marie Trevelyan and former leader Iain Duncan Smith.

It will then be a question of whether the remaining MPs push the party to the right, into the arms of Mr Farage, or tack back to the centre, where elections are won in Britain.

“Who knows who will be left standing for the leadership as it’s going to be a very different-looking Tory party on Friday morning,” concluded Mr Hopkins.

Canada '93

The memory of Canada’s Progressive Conservatives’ evisceration in 1993, when it went from the ruling party to holding just two seats, is now being more frequently discussed, with the Tories potentially getting less than 50.

The Conservatives also face a further threat from various websites, such as Best for Britain, advising people how to vote tactically to remove their Tory MP.

However, these sites are not always accurate and could potentially assist the sitting MP by giving wrong advice. “If they’re wrong, then the Conservative could end up holding on to some seats by a whisker,” Mr Hopkins said.

With more parties becoming serious contenders for seats there is a stronger likelihood of three-way splits in voting in some constituencies, although these are difficult to predict.

The rise of Reform also means that in Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system the threshold of victory is lower for Labour and the Lib Dems.

Lib Dem opposition

Given the increasingly grim fallout from the “Gamblegate” scandal where Tories placed dates on the date of the election, there is now a slim chance that the Lib Dems could overtake the Conservatives to become the main opposition party.

Four weeks ago Mr Hopkins said that chance was zero “but the fact it’s now not zero tells you something”, he said. The chance of Lib Dem leader Ed Davey becoming leader of the opposition “is not zero any more”, he added.

“That is pretty incredible for the Lib Dems because at every other election it is basically zero.”

The Electoral Calculus polling company now predicts the Lib Dems overtaking the Conservatives with 71 seats to the Tories’ 61.

“If they get their voting operation right and get out the vote and campaign bang on, then that feels eminently plausible,” said Mr Hopkins.

It also appeared from party activist feedback that even “shy Tories” will not save the Conservatives on this occasion.