Forecast #EP2019 – 22nd May 2019



This is our latest forecast for the 23rd of May 2019 European Parliament Election in Great Britain.

This is a forecast representing the result we expect on the 23rd of May.

What does your forecast show? – We show the expected range of percentage vote for each party, together with the central forecast. The range is a 50% confidence interval (but will move to a 95% confidence interval for our final forecast). We also show the expected number of seats across the whole of Great Britain.

What do you use for your forecast? – We use all the latest polling data, where available. We also look at the betting markets and other information to help guide our forecast. We calculate the interaction between the support for the parties on as local a level as statistically possible and then use this to run a Monte Carlo simulation of the election.

Do you do a regional forecast for Wales and Scotland? – For a General Election we would conduct a forecast at regional and sub-regional levels. At present the level of polling data for the UK does not support regional forecasts.

I want to ask a question / get in touch – Write a comment below to get in touch.

Key Features

Our updated forecast shows the Brexit Party support stabilising at a high level with an almost certain likelihood of coming in first place on the vote count. The Greens and the Liberal Democrats continue their rise as the main places for Remain voters to place their ballots and we now have a greater than 50% likelihood that the Greens will beat the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats continue to be strong favourites for second place on the national vote, though the peculiarities of the d’Hondt system mean they may yet have fewer seats than Labour.

Both the Conservatives and the Greens are at levels of support where just an extra percentage point either way can have a dramatic effect on the number of seats they achieve (due to the d’Hondt system of PR utilised for the election). This means that although we may be quite accurate on their final vote tally, the seat forecasts for both parties should be taken with a note of caution.

Regional sub-samples indicate that support for the SNP and Plaid Cymru is firming up and they should achieve at least the same outcome in seats as 2014.

There is no forecast for Northern Ireland due to limited data. We anticipate a similar result to 2014 (1 seat each for Sinn Fein, DUP and UUP).

UK Forecast

Party % Vote Forecast Seats Change on 2014
Brexit Party 36.4% (33.8% – 39.0%) 34 +34
Liberal Democrats 17.7% (20.2% – 15.2%) 10+9
Labour 16.0% (20.2% – 11.8%) 13 -7
Green  10.2% (7.2% – 13.2%)  6 +3
Conservatives 8.8% (6.2% – 11.4%) 4 -15
Change UK 4.3% (3.3% – 5.3%) 0 
UKIP 3.0% (2.6% – 3.4%) 0 -24
SNP 2.8% (2.3% – 3.2%) 2 
Plaid Cymru 0.8% (0.5% – 1.1%) 1 

Likeliest Outcomes (Votes)

Outcome (Votes) Probability
Brexit Party
Liberal Democrats
Labour
Green
Conservatives
 28.8%
Brexit Party
Labour
Liberal Democrats
Green
Conservatives

21.8%
Brexit Party
Liberal Democrats
Labour
Conservative
Green

17.5%
Brexit Party
Labour
Liberal Democrats
Conservatives
Green
 13.6%
Brexit Party
Liberal Democrats
Green
Labour
Conservative
7.7%
All Others <5%

Party Position (Votes) for National Parties

1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th
Brexit Party100%
Liberal Democrats61.1%36.6%2.2%<1%
Labour37.4%46.8%11.5%4.2%<1%
Green1.4%11.9%52.1%31.7%2.1%<1%
Conservatives<1%4.8%33.9%56.2%3.5%1.5%
Change UK<1%7.5%78.7%13.5%
UKIP<1%15.6%84.1%

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.