Corbyn and Galloway on course for re-election, according to election forecaster

Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway are forecast to be re-elected to Parliament at the general election, according to one forecaster.

Electoral Calculus, which correctly predicted the size of the Conservative majority at the 2019 election three weeks from polling day, currently forecasts Labour to win 461 seats, with the Conservatives on just 80.

The Liberal Democrats are forecast to be just 17 seats behind the Tories with 63 – higher than the number of seats won under Charles Kennedy in 2005.

The SNP is projected to win 20 seats, with Plaid Cymru on three, the Greens two and one for Reform UK.

However, Electoral Calculus’ forecast also predicts that Jeremy Corbyn will win in Islington North and that George Galloway will hold Rochdale, following a by-election in the constituency earlier this year.

The model forecasts Galloway to win just shy of 32% of the vote in Rochdale, compared to 23.4% for Labour, 18% for the Conservatives and 16.4% for Reform UK.

Despite this, Electoral Calculus gives Labour a 33% chance of winning back the seat, compared to Galloway’s 22% chance.

In Islington North, Corbyn is forecast to secure a 13.1% majority over Labour, attracting 40% of the vote, compared to Labour’s 26.9%. Electoral Calculus gives the former Labour leader a 54% chance of re-election, with Labour having a 32% chance of victory.

Electoral Calculus also forecasts a close race in one of Labour’s safest seats, Birmingham Ladywood.

Labour’s Shabana Mahmood is expected to win re-election, but with a majority cut from more than 73% based on new boundaries to just 6%.

Mahmood is forecast to win just over 37% of the vote, with independent candidate Akhmed Yakoob forecast to win 31%. Yakoob, who has been backed by Workers Party leader George Galloway, stood as an independent in the West Midlands mayoral election last month – attracting almost 20% in Birmingham.

Martin Baxter, founder and CEO of Electoral Calculus, said the forecasts in those constituencies should be treated with some caution as there are “greater uncertainties in these seats”.

He said: “Seats with strong independent or minor party candidates, like Jeremy Corbyn or George Galloway, are hard to predict and have more uncertainty than usual.

“Our predictions are based on a combination of MRP polling plus analysis of the betting markets, but I would caution against treating our predictions too reverentially.”

Electoral Calculus’ forecast is one of the more bullish of Labour’s chances, with the Economist predicting Labour to win 390 seats and the New Statesman forecasting 456.

Baxter said: “Most of the MRP predictions agree that Labour is likely to get a large majority, probably bigger than Tony Blair won in 1997. Ourselves, YouGov and Survation all agree on this – and every MRP thinks Labour will win a landslide majority.

“Other prediction methods can speak for themselves, but we have found MRP to be the most accurate way, that we know, of predicting elections.

“In terms of our own figures, we have performed an important cross-check which gives us some confidence. We have taken our polling fieldwork and applied uniform national swing (UNS) to all the seats in the country, where we segment the seats into groups based on the Conservative vote share in 2019. This is a completely non-MRP cross-check, and gives very similar answers to MRP.”

Baxter said that the most accurate time for a prediction of the election result is close to the final vote, “as that reduces the scope for late swing”.

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Read more of our 2024 general election coverage here.

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