Labour heading for 'extraordinary' election landslide victory, minister says - as Braverman admits ‘it’s over’

3 July 2024, 09:43 | Updated: 3 July 2024, 09:49

Tory minister Mel Stride admitted on LBC this morning that a landslide General Election win for Labour is “likely” - as he all but conceded defeat.

Speaking to Nick Ferrari, the work and pensions secretary has said there will “almost certainly” be the “largest landslide in the electoral history of our country”.

This comes after the former Conservative home secretary Suella Braverman declared on Tuesday that the General Election is "over" for the Tories.

Writing in The Telegraph, Ms Braverman said the “writing is on the wall” and blamed Rishi Sunak for taking the Tories to the centre-ground.

Mr Stride has often been the cabinet member to face the media throughout the six-week campaign and while he has largely remained positive, he appears to have resigned to the prospect of defeat.

Watch Again: Nick Ferrari speaks to Mel Stride | 03/07

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He said: “Tomorrow is the big day… This is a result that will almost certainly, if the polls are to be believed and I think they are to be believed, is going to see the largest landslide that any political party has achieved in the electoral history of our country.

“I think the polls have been consistently where they are for some time and it is likely now that we are going to be heading towards - tomorrow - the largest landslide in the history of this country.”

The latest polling has Labour with 40% of the votes - 19 points ahead of the Conservatives. This deficit is largely unchanged from when Mr Sunak called the election on 22 May.

However, support for Reform UK has gathered momentum throughout the campaign with polls suggesting Nigel Farage’s party is just five points behind the Tories.

While Mr Stride has all but accepted defeat, he has urged voters that are undecided between Reform and the Tories to vote Conservative to avoid a “Labour supermajority” that would give Sir Keir Starmer’s party “untrammelled power”.

He said there could be a “huge Labour supermajority unless enough people go out there and vote Conservative so that we have a viable opposition to that party in parliament to hold them to account”.

He added: “We are less than 24 hours from the polling stations actually opening so we are where we are. I still want us to fight for every single vote but I'm really worried about an untrammelled Labour party in power.”

On the threat of Reform to the effectiveness of the Tories in opposition, Mr Stride said: “Reform cannot, under our first past the post system, secure more than a small handful of seats at an absolute maximum.

“But what they can do is, by drawing away support from people that would otherwise vote conservative, is hand this landslide to Labour.”

Ms Braverman also highlighted the threat of Reform, saying the Tories were “haemorrhaging votes” to Mr Farage’s party” after moving too close to the centre.

Read more: ‘It’s over’: Braverman concedes defeat in election as she says Tories need to prepare for ‘reality of opposition’

Read more: Boris Johnson makes surprise appearance at Tory campaign event - as he calls for voters to stop 'Starmergeddon'

She admitted that the rise of Reform, not far behind the Tories in the polls, was “entirely our own fault”.

She wrote: “We failed to cut immigration or tax, or to deal with the net zero and the woke policies we have presided over for 14 years.

“I don’t agree with Mr Farage on everything, but we Tories need to reflect honestly and with humility to ask ourselves how a start-up party, with very little infrastructure, has galvanised the electorate and lured so many of our life-long supporters.

“Millions of traditional Tory voters simply aren’t wrong. In house after house, lifelong Conservatives are furious with our party. At worst, they feel betrayed and politically homeless.

“We may lose hundreds of excellent MPs because of our abject inability to have foreseen this inevitability months ago – that our failure to unite the Right would destroy us.”