By Joseph Marshall
December 12 2019, 22.55
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Election polls predict that the Conservatives have won an overall majority in the general election with 368 seats.
Labour are expected to have won 191 seats and the Liberal Democrats 13.
The Scottish National Party are forecast to win 55 seats.
The poll is carried out by surveying voters as they leave the polling station, and are asked to fill in a mock ballot paper, indicating who they voted for.
It was conducted by Ipsos Mori and comprises 22,790 voters at 144 polling stations.
If the results are correct, the Tories have a huge overall majority of 86.
This would make Boris Johnson is the most successful prime minister since Margaret Thatcher.
The SNP are predicted to remain the third biggest party with 55 of the 59 seats in Scotland.
There is no guarantee that the exit poll is correct, however such predictions proved accurate in 2017 and 2015.
The first set of actual results is due before midnight.
The final count won’t be known until around midday on Friday.
An overall majority would allow Boris Johnson and the Conservatives to pass legislature in the House of Commons.
This would enable them to carry out the process of leaving the European Union as they intend.
Labour are forecast to secure their lowest number of seats since 1935.
This is the UK’s third general election in under five years.
It is the first December general election in 100 years.
According to Ipsos Mori: “The Conservatives are expected to advance most strongly and Labour fall back most in areas that voted most strongly for Leave, many of them more working-class seats.”
The race to be the first constituency to release their results is on.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Houghton and Sunderland South are both strong contenders, as they have won the accolade in previous years.
