Labour Predicted to Win Landslide Victory in UK Election

Keir Starmer's Labour will romp to victory, according to pollster YouGov. The final United Kingdom election polls make grim reading for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives. YouGov's MRP poll predicts Keir Starmer's Labour will win 431 seats, up 229 from 2019, with the Tories on 102, down 263 seats from the last election. These numbers would give Labour a majority of 212, the largest the party has ever enjoyed.

Ed Davey's Liberal Democrats were on 72 seats, up 61. Nigel Farage's insurgent right-wing Reform UK, meanwhile, was predicted to win three seats. A massive Labour landslide would be a transformative result for British politics, sending the Tories packing after 14 years of rule and five prime ministers, during which Brexit and ongoing rows over immigration have divided the country. A poll by More in Common released Wednesday predicted a 210-seat majority for Labour, showing the party on 430 seats, up 228 from the last election, while the Tories were down 239 seats on 126. The Lib Dems returned as the third party with 52 seats, up 41, while the Scottish National Party held 16 seats, a loss of 32.

Reform UK won two seats. A Focaldata poll also published Wednesday suggested an even higher majority for Labour of 238, allocating the party 444 seats to the Tories' 108 seats. The Lib Dems would also return as the third party with 57 seats, while the SNP held just 15 of Scotland's 57 seats. Reform would again win two seats. YouGov, a long-standing pollster, correctly predicted a hung parliament in the 2017 general election in an MRP poll when other polling suggested a strong majority for the Tories.

MRP (multi-level regression and post-stratification) polls use a far larger sample size and involve looking at each person's voting intention and their demographic characteristics, including their age, income, occupation and level of education, as well as their past voting behavior. The pollster then maps these factors onto the rest of the country, looking at how many voters fit that characteristic in each constituency using data from sources including the latest census, which allows seat-by-seat predictions. In the House of Commons, 326 seats out of 650 are needed to govern with an overall majority. Labour's last election-winning Prime Minister Tony Blair won the 1997 general election with a majority of 179, winning two further elections with smaller majorities. History and polling suggest Labour Leader Keir Starmer could set a new record on July 4.

Candidate defects to the Tories saying 'vast majority' of people standing for Reform UK are 'racist, misogynistic, and bigoted.' Uber-Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg takes page from Donald Trump's playbook. Reform UK leader claims US Republican 'was watching my speeches in the European Parliament' before running for the White House. Millions of people across the UK are readying themselves to vote in Thursday's general election, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak battles to keep opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer out of 10 Downing Street. Mr Sunak's Conservatives and Sir Keir's Labour Party have spent the final days of the campaign reinforcing their key messages in a bid to win over wavering voters. Faced by poll after poll indicating a sizeable lead for Labour, the Conservatives are warning voters against allowing their rivals a huge majority - with one minister conceding that he expects a landslide.

They also face a threat from right-wing party Reform UK, buoyed by the return to front-line politics of Nigel Farage. But after four election defeats in a row and 14 years in opposition, Sir Keir's party says it is taking nothing for granted. Although themes such as living standards, health and immigration have dominated the national debate, smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party of England and Wales have pushed their own priorities as well. Here is everything you need to know as the country heads to the polls, with 650 seats in the House of Commons up for grabs. Mindful that it has not won a general election since 2005 - and that its last result in 2019 under left-wing former leader Jeremy Corbyn was its worst for almost a century - Labour under Sir Keir has sought to show voters it has changed.

Sir Keir says the top priority for his government would be to grow the economy and through this improve living standards for the general population. UK household finances have taken a hit in recent years due to soaring inflation, experienced globally, and the highest tax burden in decades. However, Conservatives say this is a consequence of issues outside of their control, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. They also claim the tax burden would worsen under Labour. One of Labour's most-discussed plans to raise money involves applying value-added tax (VAT) to private schools.

Mr Sunak, who took office in October 2022, has proposed tax cuts for the self-employed and a return to an era of mandatory national service for young people. Like Labour, he is also promising to boost home ownership. Mr Sunak is reiterating his aim of sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda in a bid to curb illegal migration - a pre-existing plan that has been mired in years of legal difficulties before it was approved by Parliament in April. What are the parties promising? Election poll tracker: How do the parties compare? Nigel Farage is making his eighth attempt at winning a Westminster seat Immigration is at the heart of some of the key pledges of the Reform UK, which says it would freeze 'non-essential' migration. Although it has just one MP, the party is consistently polling in third place.

Reform is a successor to the Brexit Party, which fought for a 'hard' withdrawal of the UK from the European Union. Despite being a major part of the Conservatives' legacy, Brexit has been largely absent from the election campaign. The Liberal Democrats have pledged to reverse one aspect of Brexit by re-joining the European single market. As the party continues to recover from a 2015 election thrashing, it is also promising major investment in social care. Meanwhile, the Green Party of England and Wales - which currently has one MP - is running on a platform that includes new taxes on the wealthy and a policy of net-zero emissions by 2040.

Sir Keir and his colleagues have not only attacked their adversaries' track record in government - including a tumultuous period in 2022 when the UK had three prime ministers in a matter of weeks. They have also criticised the culture at the top of the Conservative Party, highlighting a recent alleged betting scandal. Mr Sunak was also knocked off his key messaging earlier in the campaign when he was forced to apologise for his early exit from an event in France at which global leaders commemorated the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in World War Two. But the Tories have managed to land blows on Reform, whose candidates have been caught in controversies of their own. Its new leader Nigel Farage, on his eighth attempt at winning a Westminster seat, triggered a backlash by suggesting that the West 'provoked' the war in Ukraine.

Labour has not been immune to pre-election headaches of its own, not least with a row over whether it would pick veteran left-winger Diane Abbott as a candidate. And Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey was prompted to clarify that he takes voters' concerns 'extremely seriously', after a string of electoral stunts - including a plunge in a lake - that he said we