London:

Sojan Joseph, a mental health nurse in the National Health Service (NHS) who migrated from Kerala 22 years ago, is among the new crop of Labour members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons in the UK general election this week.

Mr Joseph, 49, connected with the voters at the doorstep with his pledge to ensure more mental health services in his constituency and succeeded in making a dent in the Conservative stronghold of Ashford in Kent, south-eastern England.

In defeating Tory stalwart and former minister Damian Green, Mr Joseph also dealt a blow to the anti-immigration rhetoric of the right-wing candidates in a seat where the far-right Reform UK came in third place after the Tories.

“I am humbled with the trust you all placed in me and fully aware of the responsibilities that come with it. I will work hard for everyone in Ashford, Hawkinge and villages,” said Mr Joseph in his acceptance speech on Friday.

Being a local councillor and a BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) Officer would have prepared the medical professional for this new parliamentary challenge. But it is his over two decades’ long NHS career as a mental health nurse that he feels gives him the empathy required for his new job in Parliament.

Also, his connect with the local communities of Ashford, where he has been living with his wife and three children for over 15 years, is his additional motivation.

“I take great pride in calling Ashford, and Willesborough, my home. I have taken part in a number of fundraising activities over the years, including running marathons for various charities and a dragon boat race for the local hospital charity,” said Mr Joseph, who has undertaken several international marathons for charity.

“I firmly believe in an inclusive society that works towards achieving the full potential for every individual in the community,” he adds.

Mr Joseph, who went to school in Kottayam, completed his nursing studies at B R Ambedkar Medical College in Bengaluru. In the UK, he studied for a Master’s degree in healthcare leadership, focusing on diversity and inclusion in public healthcare. Many voters described him as extremely passionate about improving access to mental and physical healthcare services for everyone on the campaign trail.

When he takes his seat in the Commons next week, he will be joined by a number of other first-time Labour MPs of Indian heritage who are reflective of the nationwide swing towards the party after the Keir Starmer-led party won a landslide mandate to form a new government.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Britain’s head of state King Charles III officially appointed Labour leader Keir Starmer as prime minister on Friday during an audience at Buckingham Palace.

A photograph released by the palace showed the monarch shaking hands with Starmer, whose party won a landslide election victory. The king earlier accepted the resignation of Conservative leader Rishi Sunak.

“The King received in Audience The Right Honourable Sir Keir Starmer MP today and requested him to form a new Administration,” a palace statement read.

“Sir Keir accepted His Majesty’s offer and kissed hands upon his appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Labour leader Keir Starmer dismissed as “desperate” Rishi Sunak’s last-gasp efforts to stoke fears about the opposition party winning a huge majority at Thursday’s UK election, with the Prime Minister’s campaign turning increasingly frantic as it sought to avert a crushing Conservative defeat.

Two days out from the vote, PM Sunak ramped up attacks on Labour and warned that typical Conservative voters staying home could hand Starmer a result in line with current opinion polls which project him securing a parliamentary majority of more than 200 seats. That would mean the incoming government would have a “blank check” to do what it likes, Sunak said.

‘I don’t want people to sleepwalk into that’

Rishi Sunak told #BBCBreakfast he’s concerned about a ‘Labour supermajority’ with less than 48 hours to go until polls open in the General Electionhttps://t.co/2pmWZBN0m3pic.twitter.com/8MweIKxAVt

— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) July 2, 2024

While Mr Sunak denied he’s given up on victory, the Tories have pivoted in the past two weeks to issuing warnings about the scale of a Labour victory – an apparent concession that the governing party is not going to win after a succession of surveys deploying seat-by-seat analysis projected the opposition is heading for a victory of historic proportions. In all, 10 of 11 so-called MRP polls project Labour will take more seats than in Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997.

The polls – and Labour’s stubborn 20-point lead that’s budged little over the campaign – highlight how little the Tories’ initial messaging around sticking with Sunak’s plan cut through with voters. The last campaign days appear now to be an exercise in damage limitation, geared toward convincing former Tory supporters who are either considering not voting or backing Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party to turn out on Thursday and vote Conservative.

48 hours to stop a Starmer supermajority. pic.twitter.com/ecuOiol5rt

— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) July 2, 2024

In a video on Sunak’s X social media account, the Tory campaign suggested a Labour government would crash the FTSE 100 and cause energy blackouts. Yet Bloomberg reporting shows investors increasingly see the UK as a safe haven due to political and economic stability brought by a change of government.

Throughout Tuesday, the Tories have also attacked Starmer over comments he made to Virgin Radio, that he blocks out appointments after 6 pm on Fridays to spend time with his family. Starmer’s wife comes from a Jewish family, and the Labour leader has spoken about the importance of their Friday evenings.

Even so, prominent Tories took aim at Starmer’s remarks. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps accused him of planning to be a “part-time prime minister” while minister Maria Caulfield told broadcasters Starmer wanted to work a four-day week – something the Labour leader did not say.

“It really is desperate. My family’s really important to me as they will be to every single person watching this,” Starmer told reporters on his own campaign visit. “It’s increasing desperation bordering on hysterical now.”

The Conservative attacks, which were widely criticized by leaders in Britain’s Jewish community, come despite Sunak saying just two weeks ago that he admired Starmer for ensuring he has family time.

“He does a very good job of balancing family life and work life and making sure that he prioritizes that and makes time for it,” Mr Sunak told LBC radio then.

Asked by Bloomberg if he endorsed the comments by his campaign alleging Starmer would not be able to defend the country because he’d finish work at 6 pm, Mr Sunak replied: “I do worry about our country’s security under Keir Starmer and I have deep concerns about it.”

Yet the overall vibe is of a campaigning running out of ideas to try to close the polling gap to Labour.

Tory leaflets warn of “French-style union laws,” national road charging and more money spent on welfare benefits. That’s despite Labour saying changes to working rights will be carried out in communication with business, pledging to get people off benefits and into work, and having announced no plans for national pay-per-mile charging on roads.

On the BBC, the premier warned that “illegal migrants will be out on the street” if Labour wins, and that asylum-seekers were “queuing up” at Calais in northern France, waiting for a Starmer government before attempting to cross the English Channel in small boats. That’s despite the Channel crossings through the end of June reaching a record for the first six months of the year.

Labour has denied any plan to raise taxes, insisting it will not put up any on “working people” and categorically ruling out rises to income tax, the national insurance payroll tax, corporation tax and valued-added tax. The party has also accused Mr Sunak of lying to the public about their policies on borders and the work ethic of their would-be premier.

The “stench of their lies and hypocrisy” is “overwhelming,” Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said on social media.

With two days to go, Labour is setting out its vision for our country’s future.

The Conservatives are slinging mud.

They can’t tell the truth about their own record, so they lie about Labour’s plans.

It’s time to choose change and bring the circus in Downing Street to an end. pic.twitter.com/I5GpKNzt2d

— Wes Streeting (@wesstreeting) July 2, 2024

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

Britain’s political leaders made a final frantic push for votes Wednesday on the last day of an election campaign expected to return a Labour government after 14 years of Conservative rule.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak insisted he was still “fighting hard” despite one of his closest allies conceding that the Tories were heading for an “extraordinary landslide” defeat on Thursday.

The Conservatives suffered a further blow at the 11th hour when The Sun tabloid, famous for backing election winners, endorsed Keir Starmer’s Labour.

Polls overwhelmingly predict that Labour will win its first general election since 2005 — making Starmer the party’s first prime minister since Gordon Brown left office in 2010.

That outcome would see Britain swing leftwards back to the centre ground after almost a decade and a half of right-wing Conservative governments, dominated first by austerity, then Brexit and a cost-of-living crisis.

Starmer, 61, criss-crossed the UK in a bid to shore up Labour support and warn against complacency in the campaign’s final hours.

“If you want change, you have to vote for it,” he told reporters at an event in Carmarthenshire, south Wales, where supporters handed out cakes with red ribbons, the colour associated with the party. 

“I’m not taking anything for granted,” he added, before flying to Scotland on the same plane that took the England football team to the European Championships in Germany.

Sunak, 44, sought to hammer home his oft-repeated warnings that a Labour government would mean tax rises and weaker national security — jibes that Labour has branded a desperate attempt to cling to power.

The Tories also stepped up their warnings to voters to stop the prospect of Labour winning a “supermajority”, which Labour fears is intended to hit turnout. 

Sunak ally Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, said Wednesday the electorate would “regret” handing Labour “untrammelled” power without an effective Tory opposition.

– Bigger than Blair? –

“If you look at the polls, it is pretty clear that Labour at this stage are heading for an extraordinary landslide on a scale that has probably never, ever been seen in this country before,” he told right-wing broadcaster GB News.

But ex-PM Boris Johnson — ousted by his own colleagues, including Sunak, in 2022 — staged his first major intervention of the campaign Tuesday, urging supporters not to see the result as a “foregone conclusion”.

Labour has enjoyed a consistent 20-point lead in the polls over the past two years with many voters dissatisfied at the Conservatives’ handling of a range of issues including public services, immigration and the economy.

Several surveys predict that Labour will win more than the record 418 seats it won when Tony Blair ended 18 years of Conservative rule in 1997. 

Labour requires at least 326 seats to secure a majority in the 650-seat parliament.

Voters head to the polls from 7:00 am (0600 GMT), with results expected to start dropping from about 2230 GMT late Thursday into Friday morning.

The vote is Britain’s first July election since 1945, when Labour under Clement Attlee defeated the Conservatives of World War II leader Winston Churchill, ushering in a period of transformational social change.

Attlee’s government created the modern welfare state, including the state-run National Health Service (NHS), Britain’s most cherished institution after the royal family.

– In-tray –

Starmer’s “change” agenda is not so radical this time around and promises cautious management of the economy, as part of a long-term growth plan that includes nursing battered public services back to health.

A Labour government would face a formidable to-do list, ranging from spurring anaemic growth to ending NHS strikes and improving post-Brexit ties with Europe.

Some voters simply eye a respite from politics after a chaotic period of five prime ministers, a succession of scandals and Tory infighting between centrists and right-wingers that shows no sign of abating. 

The Sun called the Conservatives a “divided rabble, more interested in fighting themselves than running the country”, adding: “It is time for a change.”

Starmer — the working-class son of a tool maker and a nurse — has none of the political charisma or popularity of former leader Blair, who presided over that last Labour victory in 2005.

But the former human rights lawyer and chief public prosecutor stands to gain from a country fed up with the Tories, and a feeling of national decline.

Arch-Eurosceptic Nigel Farage hopes the discontent will see him elected an MP at the eighth time of trying, while the Liberal Democrats are expected to gain dozens of seats.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

Stop Labour’s “supermajority” is the final message British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is trying to drive home on Wednesday, the final day of campaigning ahead of polling day on Thursday, as most of the incumbent Conservatives seem to have all but conceded defeat in the general election.

“This is what unites us. We need to stop the Labour supermajority that will put up your taxes. The only way to do that is to vote Conservative tomorrow,” said 44-year-old Rishi Sunak on social media, as he focused on drumming up support in the last few hours of the campaign trail.

With his party trailing far behind the Keir Starmer-led Labour Party, the British Indian leader and his team’s strategy seems to be to canvas their traditional voters to ensure a strong enough turnout in the polls on Thursday and narrow the gap of their widely expected defeat after Tory victories in the last three elections.

“I totally accept where the polls are at the moment means that tomorrow is likely to see the largest Labour landslide majority – the largest majority that this country has ever seen. Much bigger than 1997,” Rishi Sunak’s Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride told the BBC.

“I have accepted that where the polls are at the moment… that we are therefore tomorrow highly likely to be in a situation where [Labour has] the largest majority that any party has ever achieved,” he said, effectively conceding his party’s defeat.

It is being seen as a fear tactic to jolt Tory voters into action, with the hope of keeping the Labour majority under that won by former prime minister Tony Blair led Labour Party in 1997 of 179 seats.

“Thursday’s vote is now all about forming a strong enough Opposition. One needs to read the writing on the wall: it’s over, and we need to prepare for the reality and frustration of the Opposition,” Suella Braverman, sacked as home secretary by Rishi Sunak, told ‘The Telegraph’.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Boris Johnson – not exactly a close ally of Rishi Sunak ever since the partygate scandal of COVID pandemic law-breaking parties – was also rolled out by the party at a campaign event in London to warn against a “sledgehammer majority” being handed to the Keir Starmer led Labour Party.

“When Rishi asked me to come and help, of course I couldn’t say no. We’re all here because we love our country,” Boris Johnson told a cheering Tory crowd.

“They can achieve nothing in this election except to usher in the most left-wing Labour government since the war with a huge majority, and we must not let it happen,” he warned.

The Labour Party, meanwhile, is keen to override this message of victory as a foregone conclusion a day before the polls to fight against any complacency within the ranks and among its own voter base.

“People are saying the polls predict the future – they don’t predict the future, every single vote counts, every single vote has to be earned… It isn’t ‘job done’,” said Keir Starmer.

Polling experts have forecast a low turnout, which stood at 67 per cent in the last general election in December 2019 when Boris Johnson won a solid majority on his “get Brexit done” message.

On Thursday, polling booths will open across the country at 7am local time and close at 10pm local time as voters elect their MPs for the UK Parliament’s 650 constituencies – with 326 required for a majority and to avert a hung Parliament.

All eyes will then be on the election night exit poll at 10pm, which gives a fair snapshot of what can be expected nationally as the counting commences and centres up and down the UK. If opinion polls are to be believed, the incumbent Tories are in line to win anywhere between 53 and 150 seats, with Labour projected to win a landslide. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

Here are some key issues at stake in the UK general election on Thursday:

– Will jaded voters turn out? –

The main opposition Labour party is widely predicted to win and has been determined not to take any risks, making for a lacklustre election campaign.

For the past two years, polling has suggested that Labour is 20 points ahead of the Conservatives, and no amount of campaigning has managed to shift the dial.

But if that indicates a desire for change after 14 years of Tory government, there does not appear to be much enthusiasm for Labour’s plans.

Indeed, Labour has repeatedly warned that it does not have a “magic wand” to change the country overnight.

The apathy extends to both leaders, with 72 percent having an unfavourable opinion of Tory leader Rishi Sunak and 51 percent of Labour’s Keir Starmer, according to a YouGov poll this month.

That has prompted questions about whether voters will turn out in large numbers spurred on by the promise of change or remain at home jaded by years of chaos and no great love for party leaders. 

Labour figures have made no secret of their concerns surrounding voter apathy, with dozens of seats closely contested and up for grabs.

Turnout (67.3 percent in 2019) will provide an indicator of voters’ distrust of their political class, and a challenge for the next government.

– Lucky number eight for Farage? –

An unexpected addition to the campaign, Nigel Farage — the Brexit figurehead who has now become the spokesperson of hard-right, anti-immigration views — entered the race as the leader of Reform UK.

Despite a surge in the polls, the UK’s first-past-the-post system makes outright victory for the 60-year-old former European parliamentarian and his party unlikely.

If he succeeds at his eighth attempt to get a seat in parliament as the MP for Clacton-on-Sea in east England, Farage — a Donald Trump ally — will have even more visibility.

If he fails, his startup Reform UK party, currently polling around 19 percent, would still play a decisive role in the race between the Tories and Labour in several constituencies.

– Tory wipeout? –

Several polls suggest the party of Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson will win fewer seats than the 141 it secured in 1906, in what would be the worst result since its creation in 1834.

Speculation has already started about who would succeed Rishi Sunak to lead the fragmented party. 

It remains to be seen how many big names will save their seats and what direction the party, which was centrist under David Cameron (2010-2015) and then drifted to the right, can take.

In the event of Reform’s success, some Tories would not object to an alliance.

– Weakened Scottish nationalists? –

Nothing seems to be going right for the Scottish National Party (SNP), which has dominated the devolved nation’s politics for the last 15 years. 

The surprise resignation of charismatic first minister Nicola Sturgeon in 2023 destabilised the party. Her successor Humza Yousaf only lasted a year.

The left-wing party is still the target of a probe into its finances in which Sturgeon’s husband was implicated and does not have a viable strategy to deliver independence, a fight that was revived by Brexit but blocked by London.

First Minister John Swinney insists that winning in a majority of Scotland’s 59 UK parliamentary constituencies would be a green light for him to launch fresh negotiations on another referendum with the new government in London.

The SNP currently holds 43 seats. But Labour looks set to use its national momentum to reassert its dominance in Scotland. July 4 promises to be the first electoral test for the pro-independent movement’s difficulties.

– Return of the Lib Dems? –

Ed Davey has run an offbeat campaign, gliding down a waterslide, falling off a paddleboard, roasting marshmallows, building sandcastles, bungee jumping and even Zumba dancing. 

His stunts and policies alike have set out to carve a niche for his Liberal Democrat party while Sunak and Starmer duel, Farage returns and Labour moves back to the centre ground.

The Lib Dems’ rise to around 12 percent in polls and their strong presence in southern England could win them up to 67 seats, according to one YouGov poll, up from 11 in 2019. 

Such a victory would be comparable to the party’s breakthrough in 2010, when it governed with the Conservatives, and would give strength to its pro-European and climate-centred policies.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

People attend the Reform UK party’s rally at the NEC in Birmingham, Britain, June 30, 2024. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

As Britain’s election campaign enters its final stretch, the work of opinion pollsters is back in the spotlight with several recent projections of a record victory for the opposition Labour Party grabbing the headlines.

Labour’s ample 20-point opinion poll lead has hardly budged since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the July 4 election last month, shifting the focus to the question of how big Keir Starmer’s win will be rather than whether it will happen.

Also Read : U.K. General Election: Polls predict massive majority for Labour Party

But Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system means the number of seats each party wins does not closely reflect the national share of vote they receive, so pollsters use so-called MRP modelling in a bid to more accurately estimate the result.

WHAT IS MRP & HOW DOES IT WORK?

MRP stands for Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification and it is used by pollsters to estimate public opinion at a local level from large national samples. Pollsters describe it as a model that uses polling data, rather than a poll itself.

Pollsters construct a statistical model which summarises how voting intention differs depending on the characteristics of survey respondents and where they live. This will take into account factors such as age, income, educational background and past voting behaviour.

This model is then used to produce estimates of the voting intentions among different types of people living in different areas of the country.

Pollsters combine that with official data on the numbers of people of each type living in each area to generate an estimate of overall voting intention for the constituency.

The exact model used to predict voter behaviour varies from pollster to pollster.

HOW DOES IT DIFFER FROM OTHER POLLING METHODS?

Conventional polling methods often apply a uniform national swing to predict how many seats a party will win.

This assumes there will be the same change in vote share for each party throughout the country, which is rarely the case, meaning it can overestimate the performance of a party in some areas and underestimate it in others.

MRP sample size is also much higher. Typical political polls rely on between 1,000 and 2,000 responses, while MRP modelling uses data from tens of thousands of voters.

HAVE THEY BEEN RIGHT IN THE PAST?

MRP is a relatively new technique. After polling companies miscalled an election in 2015 and underestimated support for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, many looked to use more sophisticated data analysis to come up with seat-by-seat results.

MRP was used by YouGov in 2017 to accurately predict Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May would fall short of an overall majority. YouGov said its model called 93% of seats correctly that year.

The method had some success in 2019, with YouGov’s MRP predicting a clear majority for the Conservatives although underestimating the scale of it.

WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS?

British voters have become more unpredictable, with Brexit scrambling traditional political allegiances.

More voters switched between the two main parties at a 2017 election than in any ballot dating back to 1966, according to research by the British Election Study. The more people change their minds, the harder it is to draw a representative sample.

“MRP only works when there is a strong link between, on the one hand, the characteristics of individuals and areas and, on the other, the opinion being modelled,” the British Polling Council says on their website.

Pollsters describe MRP as an estimate of the range of possible results.

Savanta’s MRP published on June 19 projected Labour could win a whopping 516 seats in the 650-strong House of Commons, with the Conservatives on 53. But it also noted nearly 200 seats had less than 7.5 percentage points between the parties in first and second place, deeming them as ‘too close to call’ and meaning the end result could be very different.

YouGov’s MRP published on the same day gave Labour 425 seats and the Conservatives 108, but classified 109 constituencies as “tossups” with fewer than five points between the parties in first and second place.

There may also be specific issues at play in individual seats which MRP modelling is unable to capture.

London:

The United Kingdom is gearing up for an intense election battle on July 4. The ruling Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and his rival Keir Starmer’s Labour Party are locked in what’s said to be one of the most high-profile electoral battles globally. 

In October 2022, Mr Sunak, 44, became the first Indian-origin British prime minister and the youngest occupant of the 10 Downing Street in 210 years. This happened after the country went through a major political turmoil, witnessing back-to-back resignations of two former PMs Boris Johnson and his successor Liz Truss.

Ahead of the crucial polls this week, let’s revisit the moment Mr Sunak came to power:

In 2015, Mr Sunak was elected as the Conservative MP for Richmond, Yorkshire. A lifelong Brexiter, he campaigned for leaving the economic bloc, and he got his first ministerial berth under Theresa May, as number three at the newly re-named Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in 2018.

Later, he endorsed Borish Johnson for the post of Prime Minister.

2019 UK elections

The Conservative Party, under the leadership of Boris Johnson, emerged victorious in the 2019 elections, bagging 365 of the 650 seats. While Johnson continued as the Prime Minister, Mr Sunak was rewarded with the job of Treasury minister under then Chancellor Sajid Javid.

Later, when Mr Javid resigned from the post over a power battle, Mr Sunak was promoted to the role of Chancellor. This made Sunak the first minister of Indian origin to hold one of the highest offices in the UK government.

Mr Sunak was praised during the COVID-19 lockdown for his series of mini Budgets that introduced measures such as the furlough scheme that went on to save many jobs and businesses. He was even pitted as a clear favourite to succeed Johnson as the Tory leader.

Rishi Sunak vs Liz Truss

In 2022, when Mr Johnson announced his decision to resign as the UK Prime Minister following a mass revolt by ministers over his leadership that was sparked by major scandals, including Partygate, both Mr Sunak and Ms Truss started their bids to succeed Johnson. 

Ultimately, Ms Truss went on to win the Conservative Party leadership race and became the new British PM. However, after six weeks amid an open revolt, Ms Truss had to resign.

Rishi Sunak becomes PM

Mr Sunak went on to create history and became the Prime Minister of the UK in October 2022 after Penny Mordaunt, the last remaining rival in the Tory leadership contest, dropped out of the race.

Back then, Mr Sunak reportedly won the public support of around 200 of his Conservative MP colleagues and succeeded Truss as the new UK Prime Minister.

London:

Three British opinion polls released late on Saturday presented a grim picture for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, and one pollster warned that the party faced “electoral extinction” in July 4’s election.

The polls come just over halfway through the election campaign, after a week in which both the Conservatives and Labour set out their manifestos, and shortly before voters begin to receive postal ballots.

Sunak surprised many in his own party by announcing an early election on May 22, against widespread expectations that he would wait until later in the year to allow more time for living standards to recover after the highest inflation in 40 years.

Market research company Savanta found 46% support for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, up 2 points on the previous poll five days earlier, while support for the Conservatives dropped 4 points to 21%. The poll was conducted from June 12 to June 14 for the Sunday Telegraph.

Labour’s 25-point lead was the largest since the premiership of Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, whose tax cut plans prompted investors to dump British government bonds, pushing up interest rates and forcing a Bank of England intervention.

“Our research suggests that this election could be nothing short of electoral extinction for the Conservative Party,” Chris Hopkins, political research director at Savanta, said.

A separate poll by Survation, published by the Sunday Times, predicted the Conservatives could end up with just 72 seats in the 650-member House of Commons – the lowest in their nearly 200-year history – while Labour would win 456 seats.

The poll was conducted from May 31 to June 13.

In percentage terms, the Survation poll had Labour on 40% and the Conservatives on 24%, while former Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party – a right-wing challenger to the Conservatives – was on 12%.

A third poll, by Opinium for Sunday’s Observer and conducted from June 12 to June 14, also showed Labour on 40%, the Conservatives on 23% and Reform on 14%, with the two largest parties yielding ground to smaller rivals.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)