Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
City seat set to be safest in Kent as poll predicts easy Labour win
Survey forecasts comfortable hold as red wave to sweep across county
Canterbury is set to be the safest seat at the next General Election as a major new poll forecasts a landslide win for Labour.
The 15,000-person survey predicts incumbent MP Rosie Duffield will pick up 52% of the vote, ahead of the Conservatives with just 27%.
If the polling proves accurate, Kent’s only Labour representative would also have company in Westminster for the first time, with the poll showing her party picking up 12 of the county’s 18 seats. In what would be a huge shock, it even forecasts a loss for long-serving Tory Sir Roger Gale, who has been Herne Bay’s MP for 41 years. It predicts the 80-year-old will earn 34% of the vote in the new Herne Bay and Sandwich constituency, but be pipped by Labour with 40%. The Conservatives are forecast to hold onto just six seats in Kent - Sevenoaks, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Weald of Kent, and Faversham and Mid Kent.
In the latter, MP Helen Whately would see her majority slashed, picking up 33% of the vote against Labour with 29%.
Meanwhile, Labour would win all the other 12 Kent seats up for grabs - including Tory strongholds such as Folkestone and Hythe, which even stuck with the Tories when Tony Blair stormed to victory in 1997.
That year, the Conservatives
were left with a total of 165 MPS, but the latest poll by Survation predicts the party will win just 98 seats when voters next go to the ballot box representing its worst election result.
Overall, the survey put Labour on 45%, with a 19-point lead over the Tories on 26%. It predicts Labour could be on course for a landslide, winning 468 seats, with the Scottish National Party winning 41, the Liberal Democrats 22, Plaid Cymru two, and Greens one. In 2019, the Conservatives had 365 seats, Labour 203, the SNP 48, the Lib Dems 11 and Plaid four.
In an analysis which will fuel Conservative unease about the threat from Reform UK, the
survey suggested Richard Tice’s party will come second in seven seats and achieve an overall vote share of 8.5%, just behind the Liberal Democrats on 10.4%.
Reform UK is forecast to pick up one in six votes in Faversham and Mid Kent, while Sevenoaks - at 16.5% - is also predicted to show significant support for the fledgling party. But a model of what would happen if Reform UK did not stand suggests the Tories would win 150 seats – still a crushing defeat, but potentially giving Mr Sunak, or more likely his replacement, a better chance to rebuild.
The study, carried out for the internationalist Best for Britain campaign group, sugges
The poll predicts the winning margin for each Kent constituency
ted several Cabinet ministers, including potential leadership contenders, could be ousted at the election as the Tories face their worst result. Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, Home Secretary James Cleverly and Defence Secretary Grant Shapps would all lose their seats, according to the study, which used a multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) process to model constituency-level results. Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch looks likely to retain her seat, along with former home secretary Suella Braverman, ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick and Kent’s Tom Tugendhat, who represents Tonbridge and is security minister.
In Mr Sunak’s new Richmond and Northallerton seat, which, based on the 2019 results should be solidly Conservative, he has just a 2.4% lead over Labour, while Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has just a 1% margin over the Liberal Democrats in his new Godalming and Ash seat. Best for Britain chief executive Naomi Smith said: “With the polling showing swathes of voters turning their backs on the Tories, it’s clear that this will be a change election.”
The poll of 15,029 adults and MRP analysis was conducted between March 8-22. What do you think? Email kentishgazette@thekmgroup.co.uk.