UK General Election Prediction Thread

[afleitch]

I've allowed people to change their vote.

Also post generic predictions/inane ramblings here.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Conservative Majority

[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.

[Oryxslayer]

So, lets engage in a little though experiment that I ran last night. Lets take the 2017 election results (a 'normal' party breakdown) and the 2019 elections results (a 'brexit' focused breakdown) by consistency into a spreadsheet. On one  side we will have the Tories, UKIP, and Brexit - this will be called the Leave block. On the  other side we will have Labour, Lib-Dems, SNP, Greens, PC, and CHUK - this will be referred to as the  opposition. Add up each of their vote shares in each constituency for each election. Ignore NI because there are no 2019 numbers for that and it's elections are weird. Lets be sure to apply some weight to the opposition numbers, say a multiplier of .85 on their result in each seat to account for the naturally inefficient vote splitting between SNP/Lab/Remain forces. Now, lets weight each result (2017 and 2019) by 50% and add them together to see what the seat breakdown is.

We get a total Leave Block seat count of around 345-350. This thought experiment does not predict seat outcomes, but I think it is a good indicator of a overall total. Boris has been chasing the metaphorical dragon of the leave-labour seats and even if he gets just a bit it will be more than enough to counter losses in Scotland, London, the London bedroom communities, and various urban regions throughout the country.

Quote from the other thread.

[Cassius]

I think the Conservatives will, probably, still be the largest party, but they’ll lose seats overall. I’m very hesitant to say whether Labour will gain or lose seats, but I think that once the dust settles they may be in a position to form a minority government with support from the SNP and the Lib Dems, on the proviso that a rerun of the referendum is called.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I think the Conservatives will, probably, still be the largest party, but they’ll lose seats overall. I’m very hesitant to say whether Labour will gain or lose seats, but I think that once the dust settles they may be in a position to form a minority government with support from the SNP and the Lib Dems, on the proviso that a rerun of the referendum is called.

Something like this.

[Gary J]

I wonder if the general election could more or less duplicate the current deadlock.

If the Conservatives are the largest party but have no obvious allies to give them a majority, the natural outcome would be for the leader of the second largest party to form a government.

Would Jeremy Corbyn be any more acceptable as the Prime Minister in a new hung Parliament than in the last one? We might easily have the same problem that Corbyn will not receive majority support but that he will block anyone else from forming a government of national unity.

Johnson could then decline to resign, as is the constitutional right of a Prime Minister who does not have a clear majority against him. He could meet Parliament and then it might be that Lib Dem etc. abstentions prevent a motion of no confidence being passed, but without the Lib Dems being willing to support any Johnson legislation the new Parliament would be as much if not more paralyzed than its predecessor.

Hopefully this sequence of events can be avoided, but it would involve MPs changing their behaviour in the new term.

[CumbrianLefty]

Corbyn *may* finally step aside in those circumstances, doubtless citing his age and that if such a result occurred he would have "defied expectations" twice in a row and thus be in a stronger position to hand over to a younger but still left wing successor.

[Tintrlvr]

Predicting Conservatives largest party with small net seat losses overall for both the Conservatives and Labour (compared to 2017; possibly neutral or slight gains compared to current standings), although overall a significant number of seats will change hands in many directions.

[cp]

If only for posterity, I'll stick my neck out and predict Labour as the largest party, but by just a few seats - 290 for Labour vs 280 for the Tories, let's say. It should be enough to combine with the SNP and Lib Dems to form a viable government for long enough to hold a referendum, but once that's done there will probably be another election within a year.

[Walmart_shopper]

Tories are the largest party, but Labour will lead a remainer minority government. The Lib Dems will hate to give Corbyn the nod, but seeing him forced to choke down a second referend Milliband-style will make it worth it for them.

[Walmart_shopper]

Conservative Majority

Maybe King Boris can rope PM Scheer and President-re-elect Trump into a UK-North American trade deal after Brexit, eh?

[CumbrianLefty]

Tories are the largest party, but Labour will lead a remainer minority government. The Lib Dems will hate to give Corbyn the nod, but seeing him forced to choke down a second referend Milliband-style will make it worth it for them.

Corbyn would cope in that scenario, I suspect.

The extent of both his support for and interest in Brexit is rather exaggerated by some.

[MillennialModerate]

I know anything can happen and all that but I really struggle to see ANY scenario where the Conservatives don’t win a majority and Labour doesn’t go down to the tune of the ‘97 Tories.

For political junkies which we all are, the most interesting scenario would probably be Labour being the largest party in a hung parliament and the Brexit party having enough seats to put them in power if they worked out an arrangement. And the Tories having a number of seats that puts them frustratingly JUST short in an arrangement with the Brexit party and DUP.

[brucejoel99]

I know anything can happen and all that but I really struggle to see ANY scenario where the Conservatives don’t win a majority and Labour doesn’t go down to the tune of the ‘97 Tories.

I mean, considering the Tories could very well lose quite a few London (+ suburban) seats & some South-West seats to the Lib Dems while gaining some significant vote share in the North that's still not enough (especially with the Brexit Party on 5-10%) to unseat Labour in most cases, it's very easy to see more-than-plausible scenarios with the Tories on less than 326.

[Walmart_shopper]

I know anything can happen and all that but I really struggle to see ANY scenario where the Conservatives don’t win a majority and Labour doesn’t go down to the tune of the ‘97 Tories.

I mean, considering the Tories could very well lose quite a few London (+ suburban) seats & some South-West seats to the Lib Dems while gaining some significant vote share in the North that's still not enough (especially with the Brexit Party on 5-10%) to unseat Labour in most cases, it's very easy to see more-than-plausible scenarios with the Tories on less than 326.

Yeah I don't think that a Tory msjority is any better for them than 50/50 for them. The generic poll numbers are certainly not telling the whole and rapidly developing story.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Conservatives around 300, Labour around 200, Lib Dems around 75, SNP around 50. Nothing for the Brexit Party. Plaid and the Greens hold their current seats. The real "fun" begins on December 13.

[Pericles]

Conservatives around 300, Labour around 200, Lib Dems around 75, SNP around 50. Nothing for the Brexit Party. Plaid and the Greens hold their current seats. The real "fun" begins on December 13.

LibDems around 75 seems pretty high.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Conservatives around 300, Labour around 200, Lib Dems around 75, SNP around 50. Nothing for the Brexit Party. Plaid and the Greens hold their current seats. The real "fun" begins on December 13.

LibDems around 75 seems pretty high.

It does, doesn't it?

[cp]

Conservatives around 300, Labour around 200, Lib Dems around 75, SNP around 50. Nothing for the Brexit Party. Plaid and the Greens hold their current seats. The real "fun" begins on December 13.

LibDems around 75 seems pretty high.

It does, doesn't it?

Especially with a 300/200 Con/Lab result. If the Lib Dems have won 75 seats (and those seats are anything like the seats they are targeting) they will have pulled far more heavily from currently held Tory seats than Labour ones. If the LD's get 75 I'd expect the Tories to be somewhere around 225 and Lab somewhere around 275. The SNP would probably be under 40 as well.

[MillennialModerate]

As I said on my posts before, amongst the 3 nations whose elections I pay attention too (US, Canada, UK) this seems like the most predictable election in a very very long time. Why on earth Labour has allowed Corbyn to continue to be leader is BEYOND me. And frankly Farage and Tice should be ashamed of themselves for chickening our in the way they are (at least appear to be)




Approximate official prediction


Conservative 345
Labour  180
Liberal Democrats  45
SNP 50
BrExit 0

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Conservatives around 300, Labour around 200, Lib Dems around 75, SNP around 50. Nothing for the Brexit Party. Plaid and the Greens hold their current seats. The real "fun" begins on December 13.

LibDems around 75 seems pretty high.

It does, doesn't it?

Especially with a 300/200 Con/Lab result. If the Lib Dems have won 75 seats (and those seats are anything like the seats they are targeting) they will have pulled far more heavily from currently held Tory seats than Labour ones. If the LD's get 75 I'd expect the Tories to be somewhere around 225 and Lab somewhere around 275. The SNP would probably be under 40 as well.

Thanks. My mental math was off. Let's adjust the Lib Dems down a little bit and the two big parties up a bit, then.

As I said on my posts before, amongst the 3 nations whose elections I pay attention too (US, Canada, UK) this seems like the most predictable election in a very very long time.

No, it really, really doesn't.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Almost nothing about this election is predictable at this stage? We have very little idea of what it will look like in any sense; other than that it won't look like the last one.

[cp]

Almost nothing about this election is predictable at this stage? We have very little idea of what it will look like in any sense; other than that it won't look like the last one.

Not even sure we can count on that. Soul crushing though it may be to contemplate, a near identical seat split (315/260/35/15/other) is very much possible.

[Oryxslayer]

Almost nothing about this election is predictable at this stage? We have very little idea of what it will look like in any sense; other than that it won't look like the last one.

Not even sure we can count on that. Soul crushing though it may be to contemplate, a near identical seat split (315/260/35/15/other) is very much possible.

Something similar to the current allotment is certainly possible, but the geographic distribution (which I suspect is what he was referring to) would be far different. For example, I would be shocked even at this stage if the Tories don't lose St. Albans and Watford, cracking their stranglehold of Herfordshire, adding on the previously cracked Surrey.