UK Election: Could PM Rishi Sunak Really Lose His Seat?

With the 2024 British election campaign going disastrously for Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives, some are starting to ask the big question: Could the prime minister lose his own seat?

The fact that anyone is bringing this up as a possibility, even if in their own minds, is a stunning development. Under normal circumstances, even if one of the major parties loses a general election, the leader’s own seat is never in question. However, these are not normal circumstances, and they are becoming less normal by the day.

What Do The Polls Say?

We will spare you the citation of dozens of recent sources and just tell you that the Conservatives are all but assured of an election loss on 4 July. Not a single opinion poll over the past almost two years has had the Tories in the lead or even close to it. The news has not gotten any better for them during the election campaign, with the Reform Party stealing votes from their right flank, to the point where some believe Reform might catch or perhaps overtake the Conservatives in terms of vote share.

Nothing has happened which would suggest a turnaround for Rishi Sunak or his party. In fact, if anything, the news is making it worse. We are only two weeks removed from the prime minister taking significant heat for leaving the D-Day ceremonies in Normandy early. Sunak has had disastrous appearance after appearance on the campaign trail. Then, today, news spread that one of Sunak’s protection officers may have gambled on the timing of the election, while there are Tory candidates who are being investigated by the Gambling Commission for the same. So, on top of an objectively bad campaign, now they have a gambling scandal.

Our current election prediction for the Conservatives reflects the dire situation. This was recently updated and the predicted Labour majority is well into three-digit numbers.

Rishi Sunak: About His Constituency

In addition to being the prime minister, Sunak is also the Member of Parliament for Richmond (Yorks), a so-called safe Conservative seat in North Yorkshire. Following the recent boundary changes, at this election it will be known as Richmond and Northallerton. According to electionpolling.uk, Sunak is defending a notional majority of 24,331, a swing of over 23 percent would be required to lose it, Sunak would have received about 63 percent here under these lines in 2019, and it would be Labour target seat number 343, near the bottom of the list.

That does not sound like fertile Labour territory, though as we said before, these are not ordinary circumstances. Some recent polling models and projections have suggested that the Conservatives may even win fewer than 100 seats, a defeat which would have an unprecedented scope. It would also bring the Labour tsunami wave much, much closer to Richmond and Northallerton than anyone suspects.

Also Consider

First, and very importantly, no incumbent prime minister with a House of Commons seat has lost at a British general election. Such things are very rare in Westminster-style elections around the world. In 1906, former prime minister Arthur Balfour (Con) lost his seat, but he had resigned as prime minister shortly before that election. This was the closest Britain ever came to the prospect now in front of us.

If you and I know that the Conservatives are heading for near-certain defeat on 4 July, so do the voters in Richmond and Northallerton. It has also been widely speculated that Sunak will not remain in Parliament after an election loss, which he denies. With the Reform Party on the rise – and forecast to claim 17 percent in Sunak’s constituency under YouGov’s latest MRP – do some local right-leaning voters decide to throw their votes elsewhere rather than have to do this all over in a by-election later? Would this allow Labour to come up the middle in an historic upset, or even hand Reform a victory?

Rishi Sunak’s Bottom Line

If opinion polling is correct, then there are a small number of Conservative-held seats which are not at risk in this election. The number of constituencies in varying levels of danger is far, far higher. Rishi Sunak losing in Richmond is not outside of the realm of possibility, but if the asteroid hits and they get reduced to, say, 100 seats, his will probably be one of those 100. While Labour is set to overturn some very large Tory majorities at this general election, this one might be a bridge too far.

The voters of Sunak’s constituency may suspect he will resign as an MP after losing the election. As for how many and whether or not it will have any impact on the bottom line, it is impossible to say.

That anyone has mentioned Sunak being the first prime minister to not only lose an election but his own seat is a remarkable and fitting development, given how poorly the campaign has gone. Election Yard cannot come to you today and tell you it will happen, or that we believe the Tories will fall to 100 seats, but with how crazy things have been, would anyone be surprised, either?