
Which MPs have the most to lose from a General Election?
Cabinet member Amber Rudd, former Education Secretary Justine Greening, high-profile Brexit opponent Anna Soubry, and former Conservative leadership contender Stephen Crabb could be high profile casualties if a General Election becomes the only way out of Britain’s Brexit deadlock.
Projections by new democracy app Rate Your Leader, see the Conservatives remain the largest overall party by just three seats from Labour, 38 MPs short of a parliamentary majority.
The forecast also sees Caroline Lucas lose the Green Party’s only Westminster seat, and the SNP seize Gordon Brown’s former constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
Rate Your Leader’s projection would see:
- The Conservatives losing 30 seats including those currently held by prominent MPs Amber Rudd, Anna Soubry, Stephen Crabb and Zac Goldsmith.
- Labour gaining 26 seats from the Conservatives, but losing 3 to the SNP
- The Liberal Democrats gaining 5 seats, 3 from the Conservatives and 2 from nationalist parties.
The projection was modelled on the basis of the results of an ICM poll from January 18th 2019, showing Labour with a 1% poll lead of 40-39 over the Conservatives, with the Liberal Democrats on 9%.
If the same model is repeated using a January 14th poll from YouGov which gave the Conservatives a 5 point lead over Labour, Theresa May would find herself with a parliamentary majority of 10, with prominent parliamentarians such as Gloria Del Piero and Ian Austin and high profile 2017 gains such as Canterbury and Kensington among 24 Labour losses.
The forecast has been developed by the makers of Rate Your Leader, a new app creating an abuse-proof digital platform to connect voters and politicians.
Rate Your Leader founder and high profile tech entrepreneur Ajay Jagota said:
“Even though very few of us would relish a fourth national vote in five years, a General Election could be the only way though Britain’s Brexit stalemate.
“It’s not going to be a surprise to anyone to hear how volatile British politics currently is, but if that did happen it’s striking just how few votes could make the difference between Downing Street and the scrapheap for Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May, or the difference between Westminster and the dole office for their MPs.
“If I was an MP – and particularly if I was a Leave supporting MP in an Remain constituency or visa versa – I’d be looking to take advantage of any means of engaging with as many voters as possible, and exploring what local electors really think of issues such as Brexit and of their overall performance – and technology like ours is key to the kind of high-reach but resource-low voter contact which could really make the difference.”
Rate Your Leader is a global online platform which helps politicians engage only with voters in their constituencies in an abuse-proof way. The technology allows elected leaders to truly understand what matters most to the people who elect them while allowing local people to identify and contact their representatives at the touch of a button, direct from their phones or tablets.
The app, which also allows people to check to see if they are registered to vote and identify their elected representatives at the touch of a button, is free to download from the App store and other app marketplaces.