UK General Election Prediction 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.

[Cassius]

So.

Contrary to the start of the campaign, I think the Tories will likely remain in government, either in a minority (winning a very similar number of seats to last time, give or take a few), or with a very narrow majority (330ish seats). I don’t think they will gain very many of the proverbial ‘northern marginals’ that have been discussed so much, but equally I don’t think they will lose more than a handful of seats to the SNP or the Lib Dems. I think it will be a very scrappy result with a lot of fairly random gains and losses - seats that Labour gained narrowly last time, like Peterborough and Canterbury could easily flip back to the Tories, whilst some of the narrow Tory holds like Hastings and Rye could go Labour. As I said, I think Tory gains in northern, midlands and Welsh marginals will be fairly small, but could be enough to put them over the top with a majority if they have a decent night elsewhere.

A few individual predictions:

Bolsover: Dennis Skinner will hold.
Esher, Guildford, South Cambridgeshire and Wokingham: The Lib Dems will come nowhere near in these. I think the best scenario for them will be the Tories falling to the mid forties whilst they get into the thirties, but still at least ten points adrift.
Brecon and Radnorshire: I think it’ll be close, but the Lib Dems will lose it.
Uxbridge and South Ruislip: Wouldn’t be surprised if Johnson gets back with a slightly bigger majority.
Arfon: Possible Labour gain? Was very marginal last time and apparently Labour have been busing activists into it.