The Economist’s final prediction points to a Tory wipeout in Britain

With the cut-off date for postal-voting applications already past, the Tories are polling at historically awful levels. It is not simply that other parties—Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK—are taking chunks out of their support. It is the way they are doing it. A new mega-poll conducted by The Economist in partnership with WeThink, a research outfit, suggests that they are hacking away at even the safest Tory seats.

Between May 30th and June 21st, WeThink asked 18,595 adults how they intend to vote in the general election. The results suggest Labour has a 20-percentage-point lead over the Conservatives, by 42% to 22%. Reform UK is on course for 14% of the vote, the Liberal Democrats 11% and the Green Party 6%. This is a dramatic turnaround from the 2019 election, when the Tories led by 12 points, and would be the largest swing between the main parties in modern history. But even that does not tell the full story.