SNP and Tories on track for landslides, says poll
▪ Constitutional crisis looms over Scottish independence ▪ Labour faces humiliating defeat
BORIS Johnson was on course to return to Downing Street with a robust 86 Commons majority to deliver Brexit by the end of January, according to a major exit poll.
But a predicted SNP surge to 55 seats, up 20 on the 2017 election, would mean Britain facing a constitutional crisis with the certainty of Nicola Sturgeon doubling down on her demand for a second Scottish independence referendum.
The First Minister tweeted: “Exit poll suggests good night for
@thesnp – but it is just an exit poll and there are many marginals, so let’s just wait and see.
“What it indicates UK wide though is grim. #GE19.”
It comes after previous polls suggested that support for Scottish independence would rise above 50 per cent if Brexit happens.
In the first shock of the night, Blyth Valley in north-east England, a former mining community and a Labour stronghold for decades, went to the Tories with a majority of 712, overturning a previous 7,915 Labour majority. It was a clear sign that Labour Leavers backed Mr
Johnson’s party to get Brexit done.
If replicated, this would be a seismic shift in the political landscape of northern England, demolishing Labour’s red wall of the north, but it would also change the nature of the Conservative Party, meaning it would have to respond to the concerns of more workingclass areas.
In Scotland, Tory and SNP sources were suggesting the result in Moray was too close to call. The SNP’S Westminster leader in 2017, Angus Robertson, was ousted in Moray two years ago, when the Tories took it.
Conservative sources were suggesting that if the majority is as large as predicted, then the new Johnson Government would expedite the passage of the Brexit Bill with MPS sitting the Saturday before Christmas and peers sitting in the week between Christmas and New Year, so that the bill becomes law by mid January.
The joint BBC/ITV/SKY exit poll, released as the ballot closed, put the Conservatives up 50 on two years ago at 368 seats, which would give the party its biggest majority since Margaret Thatcher’s in 1987, and Labour on 191, a fall of 71, which would be their worst result since 1935.
Such a result would put a huge question mark over Jeremy Corbyn continuing as Labour leader.
The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, were put on 13, up just one seat on 2017 and would mark a very poor performance for the party. Again, the Libdem performance will raise big doubts as to whether or not Jo Swinson could continue as leader – if, that is, she could hold on to her East Dunbartonshire seat.
A projection of 55 seats for the SNP would mean some parties in Scotland would have just a single MP as they did in the wake of the Nationalist landslide of 2015.
The pound soared against the dollar and the euro in wake of last night’s exit poll predicting such a large Conservative majority. The pound was up 1.85 per cent to
$1.342 and up 1.09% to ¤1.202 minutes after the announcement.
Labour peer Stewart Wood, a former adviser to Ed Miliband, tweeted: “For 30 years the conventional wisdom was that the Tory party would be mortally split by the national question of EU membership. Turned out that it is the Labour Party that suffered the most.”
Polling expert Michael Thrasher said Mr Corbyn would go down as “one of the worst leaders in Labour’s history”. Mr Thrasher, from the School of Sociology, Politics & Law at the University of Plymouth, told Sky News: “The Conservatives have been heading for a clear majority all day long. It really is a remarkable election victory for Boris Johnson, a majority of 86 seats.
“For Labour it really is an appalling election result and possibly its worst performance in any
General Election since the Second World War.
“So Jeremy Corbyn, I’m afraid, will go down as one of the worst leaders in Labour’s history.”
Described by all sides in the campaign as the most important General Election for a generation, this was the third election in five years and the first December poll for almost 100 years.
A total of 3,322 candidates stood across the UK’S 650 parliamentary seats today.
During the day constituencies across the UK reported the longest queues seen at some polling stations for years, sparking suggestions of a Remainer “youthquake” that would threaten Mr Johnson’s chances of getting a majority and scupper his attempt to lead Britain out of the EU next month.
Ahead of the November deadline to register to vote, some 3.1 million applications were made.
The Electoral Reform Society said this was almost 900,000 more than in the same five-week period before the 2017 election.
However earlier, an Ipsos Mori poll of more than 2,000 people conducted between Monday and Wednesday suggested the Tories enjoyed an 11-point lead over Labour, which would put them on course for a Commons majority.
Yet the result remained uncertain as the snapshot showed one in four voters admitted they could still change their mind.
The polling research for the London Evening Standard put the Conservatives on 44 per cent, Labour on 33, the Liberal Democrats on 12, the Greens on three and the Brexit Party on two while “others” would take a vote share of 6%.
Ben Page for the pollster pointed out that the snapshot showed the Tories retaining 85% of their voters from 2017 while Labour had kept 79%.
“Age pattern seen at the
2017 election has repeated,” he said.
“Labour hold a 26-point lead over the Conservatives among 18-34s whilst the
Conservatives hold a 37-point lead with those aged 65+.”
However the great unknown as the polls closed was how much tactical voting there had been.
Called because of Brexit, the election’s final numbers would show the extent to which people abandoned their normal tribal loyalties and voted either for Brexit or Remain-supporting parties, and just how widespread tactical voting actually was.
Many people had already put a cross for their favoured candidate by voting by post.
Ahead of the poll several big names were tipped for a possible shock departure from Westminster, including:
▪ Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, who in 2017 in the constituency of Esher and Walton secured a 23,000-plus majority but the Libdems have targeted the Surrey seat as their possible gain of the night.
▪ Dennis Skinner, the 87year-old Beast of Bolsover, could fall foul of the Brexit effect as the former Derbyshire mining seat voted heavily for Leave.
▪ Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and MP for Chingford in Essex since 1992, was targeted by the left-wing campaign group Momentum, which launched an #unseatids campaign in retaliation for the Universal Credit reforms, which he introduced as work and pensions secretary.
▪ Chuka Umunna, the Labourturned-liberal Democrat, tipped as a future Libdem leader, swapped Streatham for the Cities of London and Westminster seat but polling suggested the Tories would hold on to it.
▪ Theresa Villiers, the Environment Secretary, had a slender 300-majority and was predicted to fall foul of Labour
Remainer Emma Whysall in what is a pro-remain north London seat.
Earlier in the day all the party leaders – barring Nigel Farage, who voted by postal vote – were seen arriving to cast their ballot at a local polling station, braving the cold, damp and windy December weather.
But the Prime Minister declined to vote for himself in the Uxbridge seat he is seeking to represent and, instead, visited the polling station around the corner from Downing Street together with No 10 dog Dilyn.
He left the polling station at Westminster’s Methodist Central Hall around three minutes later after posing for a picture with his pet.
Elsewhere in some parts of London, “unprecedented” queues at polling stations were recorded with people having to queue around street corners in some places.
“I’ve voted at the same station and time for eight years but have never had to queue before,” said Craig Fordham, 45, from Putney, who had to wait for 15 minutes.
Chris Schofield, 27, who queued for 20 minutes in the Bermondsey and Old Southwark constituency, said: “It’s about 20 times busier than it was in 2017 and for the locals and Euro elections. Atmosphere is very London: orderly queueing and no-one is talking to each other.”
In Streatham, Alixe Bovey said she queued for 35 minutes.
Sharing a photo of the queue outside her local station, she tweeted: “In 20 years of voting in Streatham Hill, always at about this time of day, I have never encountered a queue of more than six or seven people.
“What is going on? The tailback is right up the road now.”
Wandsworth Council, which covers the Labour-held marginal seat of Battersea and the Tory-held marginal seat of Putney, said “unprecedented numbers” had turned out to vote.