UK General Election Prediction Thread

[Lumine]

Going with Conservatives as the largest party, but not a majority. Among other potential reasons:

A. The potential losses in Scotland against the SNP, and against the Lib Dems in certain areas of England seem almost a foregone conclusion (the Scottish Conservatives in particular seem utterly doomed), forcing the Conservatives to make ten to twenty gains alone from Labour just to break even.

B. I'm not yet convinced they can actually get enough voters who have never voted Conservative to do so in the seats they want to capture from Labour. That could change.

C. If the Brexit Party manages to hold the line (which is not exactly impossible) they would also deny the Conservatives capturing a number of seats, and/or cause losses in other ones.

D. Rampant tactical voting is likely to take place on some crucial seats, which again might result in losses which are difficult to compensate elsewhere.

E. Depending on how many of the surviving Conservative rebels stand against as some variation of "independent Conservative" (that specific name is illegal, I think), their personal vote - even if limited - might make the difference in losing an additional handful of seats.

That's not to say they don't have other factors that will benefit them (the Remainer vote will be far more divided, Corbyn is more unpopular and more tarnished, there is some sort of momentum to deliver Brexit once and for all, etc.), but I'd be surprised if they managed to held onto the current polling position and secure an actual majority. If anything I suspect Labour will recover a bit - not as nearly as much as in 2017, but enough to avoid a disaster - and the result will be a hung parliament.