Boris Johnson has been warned his party is set to lose more than 100 seats if he fails to curb public anger over sleaze, with five cabinet ministers on course for defeat at the next general election.
A major new poll and constituency-by-constituency analysis shows the Conservatives’ majority would be wiped out, leaving Labour the largest party in a hung parliament.
Labour is on 41 per cent – six points clear of the Conservatives, who are on 35 per cent – according to the huge Survation survey of 10,000 adults carried out on behalf of campaign group 38 Degrees.
This could see the Tories winning 255 seats, a net loss of 111, while Labour would return 309 seats – just 11 short of a majority, according to multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) analysis.
Mr Johnson is one of the cabinet members projected to lose their seats in the analysis. The others on course for defeat are environment secretary George Eustice, Scottish secretary Alister Jack, Welsh secretary Simon Hart, and Cop26 president Alok Sharma.
The survey revealed that older voters and those in rural areas were most likely to be concerned by the recent sleaze scandals and lockdown party allegations that have engulfed No 10.
“Given that older voters are ordinarily much more likely to vote Conservative, this shows the potential for accusations of sleaze to shift votes by depriving the Conservatives of this important electoral bulwark,” said Prof Christopher Hanretty of Royal Holloway University, who helped carry out the MRP analysis.
Of 40 crucial “red wall” Tory seats in the north of England and Midlands, only three – Dudley North, Morley and Outwood, and Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland – are projected to be held by Mr Johnson’s party.
And the party faces electoral wipe-out in Scotland, where the SNP is on course to win all of the Conservative Party’s seats – including Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross’s Moray constituency.
A separate Focaldata poll published on Sunday gave Labour an eight-point lead over the Tories and indicated they would win a majority.
But polling guru Sir John Curtice cautioned against over-interpreting the strength of the opposition’s poll lead over the past few weeks, saying Sir Keir Starmer’s party has yet to gain voters’ trust.
“We are talking about a collapse in the Tory vote, not a revival of the Labour party,” he told the i. “The point is that Labour still have to make any kind of significant advance in their own popularity. This is all about the Tories going down the tubes.”
It comes as a major Tory donor questioned whether Mr Johnson should be replaced. “What really concerns me is this sleaze issue and him not standing firmly enough against what’s gone on,” John Caudwell, the founder of Phones4U, told The Observer.
“I was unbelievably disappointed when I heard him almost defending and … trying to find an out for Owen Paterson. I’m not sure he can survive this, and I’m not even sure he should survive it.”
Foreign secretary Liz Truss is Tory supporters’ favourite to replace Mr Johnson if he departs No 10, according to the results of a survey published on Monday by the ConservativeHome website. An online poll showed 23 per cent backing for Ms Truss as the next party leader, ahead of 20 per cent support for chancellor Rishi Sunak.
