Forecast #GE2024 – 26th March 2024

This is our latest forecast of 2024 for the 2024 General Election in the UK. This forecast is made on the basis of an election taking place on 17 October 2024. An earlier or later election would affect our forecast.

Forecasts are made on the basis of new constituency boundaries.

What does your forecast show? – We show the mid point of our forecast for votes. We also show the most likely range of possible seats for each party.

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.

What has changed since the last forecast? – We have made minor methodological changes since our last forecast. We have changed the presumed date for the election from mid November to mid October.

What do you predict will happen in Seat X? What is the probability of Party Y having more votes than Z? – As we approach the election we reduce uncertainity in our model and are able to answer questions like this. Whilst we do not automatically publish a prediction for each seat, we can indicate a most likely outcome if required and also probabilities of victory for each candidate.

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

Key Features

The overall summary of our forecast is “Labour on course for a working majority”

Our forecast shows Labour as the largest party in the Commons.

Please note that since this forecast is for an election in the late autumn, it reflects the polls today and what we think the change in support will be between now and then. It should not be viewed as a definitive prediction of the result later this year.

Compared to our forecast last month, our overall expectation is much more favourable for Labour. This is due to shifting the election date a month earlier, but also emerging evidence that the Conservatives are not seeing a reversion to mean as initially expected at the start of the year. We are monitoring the betting markets for the May local elections and note the increasingly pessimistic outlook for the Conservatives. We do not see an easy path to recovery for the Conservatives between May and October.

At present we expect Labour to be the largest party across the whole of the UK, helped by winning back seats in Wales and Scotland from the Conservatives and the SNP respectively. We believe that Labour are very likely to win enough seats to rule without the need for any support from any other party.

In London the Conservatives are bucking the national trend, but are still likely to either only hold their current seats or lose a few. With Reform set to get over 8% of the vote in the Capital, we calculate that an accommodation between the Conservatives and Reform here could see another 6 seats lost by Labour beyond the figures below.

In Scotland the SNP have seen some recovery in the past fortnight – we now have them as neck and neck with Labour on winning the vote share, but with Labour leading by 3 to 4 seats. Even though the Tories’ vote share north of the border will be less than in 2019, they should pick up a seat or two from the SNP.

In Wales Labour resume their dominant position after Conservative gains in 2019. We are expecting a loss of most, if not all of the 2019 gains here for the Conservatives. There is little sign of the Liberal Democrats winning any seats here, with their former constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire (last won in 2010 and then again in a by-election in 2019) being only a 1 in 3 chance of victory (and probably falling short by 2000 votes). There are some indications of Reform ending up in third place on vote share, but still no sign of them picking up any seats.

We have updated our Northern Ireland forecast after new polls and a change in expected polling date. We await a formal candidate list from True Unionist Voice before we include them in our forecast, but we note their strong showing in North Antrim in the 2022 Stormont election where they took a large proportion of the DUP Westminster vote, and we see this as their most likely place to pick up a seat.

We note a continuing large increase in the vote share for Reform. Recent polling indicates that those who currently express a preference for Reform are overwhelmingly likely to vote for the Conservatives if having to make another preference. We are tracking a number of constituencies where we believe another 5% or so in the national polls might put them within reach of having MPs. These seats include Barnsley East, Barnsley Central, Hartlepool, Doncaster North, Normanton and Ashfield.

UK Forecast

Most likely result – Labour Overall Majority

England

Most likely result – Labour Majority of seats

Scotland

Most Likely Result – Labour Plurality of Seats

Wales

Most Likely Result – Labour Majority of Seats

London

Most Likely Result – Labour Majority of Seats

Northern Ireland

Most Likely Result – Too close to call between DUP Plurality and Sinn Fein Plurality