Welcome to our fourth projection for the United Kingdom general elections, which will take place on the 8th of June. The methodology we follow is described in detail in this post.
Now that the candidates running in each constituency are official, we have included in our projection an estimate of the effect of the Green Party and UKIP not running in some constituencies.
This is our new seat projection:
Conservative Party: 400 seats (=), of which 303 solid (+7), 47 likely (-3), 38 leaning (-1) and 12 tossup (-3)
Labour Party: 168 seats (+1), of which 105 solid (+17), 35 likely (-8), 20 leaning (-3) and 8 tossup (-5)
SNP: 54 seats (+7), of which 34 solid (+3), 9 likely (+2), 8 leaning (-1) and 3 tossup (+3)
Lib-Dem: 6 seats (-8), of which 1 likely (-5), 4 leaning (=) and 1 tossup (-3)
Plaid: 3 seats (=), of which 1 solid (=), 1 leaning (-1) and 1 tossup (+1)
Green Party: 1 seat, likely (=)
UKIP: 0 seats (=)
This is the national average of the polls this projection is based on:
Conservative Party: 47.7%
Labour Party: 31.0%
SNP/Plaid: 5.1%
Lib-Dem: 8.2%
Green Party: 2.7%
UKIP: 4.5%
Let’s now analyse these data more in depth.
- The Conservative Party is in a strong position. According to current opinion polls, the Conservatives should gain 64 seats from Labour, 3 from the SNP, 2 from the Lib-Dems and 1 seat from UKIP, while losing 1 seat to the Labour. Although they are still predicted to win 400 seats, the distribution is changed from our previous projection: the Tories seem to be somewhat weaker in Scotland, where they should still be the second largest party after the SNP, and in Wales, where we project they would win as many seats as Labour, while they appear to be gaining ground in London, where they could gain 9 seats from Labour and the only seat currently held by the Lib-Dems, and in the Midlands.
- The Labour Party appears to be slightly better positioned than it was in our previous projection, winning 1 extra seat. We project they would gain 1 seat from the Conservatives in Southern England, thanks to the local Green candidate standing down. They should lose their only Scottish seat to the SNP, but they should retain the position of largest Welsh party, although tied with the Conservatives in term of seats. Although they should still lose 64 seats to the Conservatives and 1 seat to the SNP, they have drastically increased their number of safe seats.
- The SNP has improved its position from our previous projection. They are now projected to lose only 3 seats to the Conservatives, while gaining the only Scottish seat currently held by Labour. Some of the seats they are now projected to hold are very marginal, so a slight worsening of their polling numbers could impact the seat-projection.
- The Lib-Dems are doing significantly worse than in our previous projection. They are now projected not to gain any new seat, and they could also lose two of their currently held seats to the Conservatives, including their only seat in London. This is quite surprising, since in our previous projection their performance in London was significantly better. It appears that their staunchly anti-Brexit approach is not paying off.
- Once again we project Plaid Cymru and the Green Party to confirm all their seats without any new gain.
- UKIP is once again projected to lose many of its votes and the only seat they won in 2015. The loss in term of votes will be enhanced by them not running is almost half of the constituencies.
This time we have also attempted a projection of the Northern Irish constituencies. Only one poll is available, hence our confidence is very low. For this reason, we have not attempted to categorise the constituencies as safe, solid, leaning or tossups, but we have only tried to project who could win each of them.
Out of the 18 Northern Irish constituencies, 14 should be easily kept by the party that won in 2015. 4 of them are more dubious:
- The Alliance could gain Belfast East seat from the DUP. This is due to the UUP running a candidate, while in 2015 they stood down.
- The DUP should gain Belfast South from the SDLP, as well as South Antrim from the UUP.
- In Fermanagh and South Tyrone we project that Sinn Fein and the UUP are tied, so it’s really hard to assign a winner to this constituency. We are assigning it to the UUP because their candidate is the incumbent.
In summary, this is our seat projection in Northern Ireland:
DUP: 9 seats
Sinn Fein: 4 seats
SDLP: 2 seats
Alliance: 1 seat
UUP: 1 seat
Independent: 1 seat
In conclusion, projecting the average of the opinion polls would lead to an easy Conservative victory, with a majority of 154 seats. If the Conservatives were to win only the seats we project either as safe or likely, they would achieve a sizable working majority of 54 seats.
