
Several senior Labour cabinet members would lose their seats to Reform if an election was held tomorrow, a new poll has shown.
Sir Keir Starmer has faced a drop in popularity a year after Labour won the general election, compounded by a number of issues, including the benefits cuts debacle and Angela Rayner’s resignation.
Meanwhile, he and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch have been trying to fend off the looming threat of Reform UK, with a number of former Tory councillors and an MP recently defecting to the party.
The previously niche, right-wing group led by Nigel Farage has come on top of recent polling, suggesting it could become the biggest party in the next election.
Now, another poll shows that Reform could win by a landslide if people voted tomorrow, securing an estimated 445 seats in Parliament – more than Labour’s landslide win in the election last year.
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Labour would go down to just 73 MPs, according to theMRP poll carried out by communications company PLMR and Electoral Calculus for the Daily Mail.
This projection would mean a loss of 339 Labour MPs, with many of the top brass facing a cull.
It would be more than the Tories’ loss of 251 seats in the general election last year, which ended 13 years of Conservative rule.
The Conservatives would face being decimated if an election was held tomorrow – the former long-standing ruling party would be left with just seven MPs, according to the seat-by-seat MRP poll carried out between September 10 and 18.
Heads would roll around Sir Keir, according to the poll – Chancellor Rachel Reeves, foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, health secretary Wes Streeting energy secretary Ed Miliband, defence secretary John Healey, and education secretary and deputy leader candidate Bridget Phillipson would lose their seats.
Cooper and Streeting would lose to Your Party, while the other ministers would see their votes go to Reform, the estimates show.
Sir Keir, foreign secretary David Lammy, transport secretary Heidi Alexander, housing secretary Steve Reed and business secretary Peter Kyle would be safe.
Losing hundreds of seats would be a disaster for Labour, but it is the Conservatives who have more to fear from polls like this, Alastair Jones, a political expert, said.
He told Metro that with the next general election not until 2029, a lot can change and that every poll should be taken ‘with a massive dose of salt, not just a pinch.’
Commenting on how realistic a Reform government would be, Jones said that in the last election, the party struggled to find enough credible candidates, with some of the candidates later facing scrutiny of their backgrounds.
He said Farage will be ‘cockahoop’ after every positive poll, but he will also be terrified at the prospect of having to lead a government.

‘I think there is something of a terror in that they won’t have the people who actually know how to govern, and he has actually admitted this,’ Alistair said.
He argued that Reform’s support is ‘lukewarm at best’ despite smash polls, and that it is ‘much more of a protest vote.’
‘With Reform doing so well in polls, we should have greater scrutiny of their policies,’ he said. ‘Whenever anybody drills into any of the Reform policies, they get awfully flaky and defensive.
‘Nigel Farage has been asked about some of the economic policies of Reform, and when he’s gotten onto thin ice, suddenly he will change the topic entirely, and he wants to talk about immigration and stopping the boats.’
Pointing to Reform-led Kent County Council’s rumoured plans to raise taxes, as reported in the Financial Times, he described their recent track record after winning council seats and mayoral races as ‘catastrophic’.
He said that despite the sea of Reform turquoise cropping up in polls, predictions like this should be a worry for the Conservatives who could be facing ‘a wipe-out’.
‘I think what we’ll see in the next election is possibly the Your Party winning a few seats, possibly 10% of the vote and Labour losing support to them, and Labour also losing support to the Greens and the Liberal Democrats rather than necessarily to Reform,’ he said.
‘They are going to take a bit of a kicking in the next general election unless the economy turns around massively.The issue for Labour is – how strong is their core support?’
As for the other parties, Jones predicted that the Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru are likely to do better than the poll predicts as they have engaged with young people.
How can Keir claw back popularity?
Jones said: ‘What he shouldn’t do is pander to the Reform agenda in the way that the Conservatives are doing, because you are then going to alienate your core support.
‘What Keir Starmer needs is a clear agenda of what they are trying to do, which has been difficult, and also to parrot some of the success stories, like Angela Rayner’s policies, like stopping fire and rehire policies, which is hugely important to protect people. A lot of the green policies are already showing fruition in the economy, but they are not talking about these.’
Who would you vote for if election was held tomorrow?
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Labour
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Conservative
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Liberal Democrats
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SNP
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Reform UK
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Green
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Plaid Cymru
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Your Party
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Other
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