Rishi Sunak to lose seat in Tory wipe-out: major polls predict

UK leader Rishi Sunak could become the first sitting British prime minister ever to lose their seat at a general election.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is on course to become the first sitting prime minister to lose their seat at a general election, a shock poll predicts.

The Conservative party is facing a historic and humiliating defeat when voters go to the polls on July 4 with a new survey predicting it could be left with an embarrassing 53 MPs – and Rishi Sunak will not be among them.

The survey of 18,000 people, conducted by the UK Daily Telegraph, warns Mr Sunak is set to become the first sitting PM to lose his seat, in North Yorkshire Richmond, to Labour.

The modern Conservative Party’s previous lowest number of seats was in 1906 when 131 were won.

The poll, carried out between June 7 and 18, predicts the Tories are gearing up for the party’s worst loss in more than one hundred years with key cabinet ministers expected to be ejected from their seats – including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Deputy Leader Penny Mordaunt, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, the former Migration Minister.

The party would also lose constituencies previously held by former prime ministers including John Major, Theresa May, Ted Heath, Boris Johnson and David Cameron.

Britain's Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader, Rishi Sunak holds a Q&A event with farmers in Barnstaple, south west England. A new poll predicts he could lose his electoral seat. Picture: AFP

The poll predicts the Liberal Democrats have a strong chance of becoming the official opposition with a predicted 50 MPs expected to win, according to results from the Savanta and Electoral Calculus.

The poll forecasts that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour will net 516 seats and a House of Commons majority of 382 – double the number which propelled former Labour PM Sir Tony Blair to power in 1997.

Adding to the government’s raft of suffering, the party is also predicted to be decimated in Wales and in the North East, and predicted to secure just three seats in the North West.

Leading the research, executive director of More In Common UK Luke Tryl said the results showed the Tories were in a “deep hole” and their popularity was worsening with just two weeks before the country goes to the polls.

The poll also predicts Nigel Farage’s far right Reform Party will not win any seats, but a separate survey by YouGov suggests that he could return five MPs to Westminster.

Britain's Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader, Rishi Sunak reacts as he visits the Sizewell B nuclear power facility, on June 19, 2024. Picture: Leon Neal / POOL / AFP

With such a gloomy forecast, former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson, who had been lined up to join the election campaign trail to reverse the party’s fortunes, is set to go on his second summer holiday and return on the eve of the election.

Mr Johnson has endorsed 50 Tory candidates across the country and put his name to tens of thousands of letters posted to voters to halt the threat posed by the right wing Reform UK party.

Mr Sunak had called on his support and had said on Tuesday the endorsements “will make a difference” but with such a colossal defeat expected, Mr Johnson has reportedly decided not to go out on the stump.

Should Mr Sunak lose his seat, he will become the first prime minister to do so at a general election, according to the Institute for Government.

Conservative party leader Arthur Balfour came close and quit as prime minister in December 1905 when he lost his seat in the election in 1906.

Sunak is widely seen as having run a lacklustre and error-strewn campaign, including facing near-universal criticism earlier this month for leaving early from D-Day commemoration events in France.

In contrast, Labour leader Keir Starmer, set to become prime minister if his party prevails on July 4, has sought to play it safe and protect his party’s poll leads.

Originally published as Rishi Sunak to lose seat in Tory wipe-out: major polls predict