Tory leadership: Boris Johnson set for mammoth 140-seat majority, shock poll claims

Mr Johnson’s campaign is set to launch on Wednesday, with the former Foreign Minister expected to keep up his warning of “delay means Corbyn”. The poll which quizzed 2000 voters, found 27 percent felt Mr Johnson had what it took to be a good Prime Minister. It anticipated that if a general election were to take place with Mr Johnson at the helm, the Tories would secure 395 seats, Labour would get 151, a drop of 111 seats, and the Liberal Democrats would get 26.

The Brexit Party would win no seats.

At the last general election, Theresa May secured 317 seats, needing the 8 DUP seats to back the party in a confidence and supply agreement to hold on to power.

Dominic Raab would also nab the Conservatives the largest number of seats in a general election as party leader with 269, but they would be 57 short of a majority.

Meanwhile, the poll would make uneasy reading for International Development Secretary Rory Stewart who is forecast to win just 51 seats as Tory leader, with the Brexit Party cleaning up 252 seats, 74 short of a majority.

READ MORE: Rory Stewart’s Tory leadership launch torn apart by BBC reporter 

The poll found that just 55 percent of Tory voters from 2017 planned on voting for them at a general election but under Mr Johnson this would increase to 68 percent.

Mr Stewart, Sajid Javid and Michael Gove would lose half of that vote.

Mr Raab would also see a small rise up to 56 percent.

Martin Baxter of Electoral Calculus says Mr Johnson would be aided by the party being divided: “With public opinion so divided, a party only needs around 30 per cent support to get a majority at Westminster.”

Current voting intention leaves Labour just 26 seats of a majority.

Mr Baxter summed up the results: “Currently the Labour party is close to a majority, as Leave voters are split between Conservatives and the Brexit Party, and no Remain party has overtaken Labour.

“The poll indicates that Boris Johnson could win back large numbers of voters from the Brexit Party and could win a substantial majority over a divided opposition.

“The next general election will be won by whoever can unite the most voters to their party, and these figures suggest Mr Johnson is the best Conservative to do that.”

Mr Johnson also looks set to take some big opposition scalps with Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, shadow ministers Jon Trinkett and Gloria del Piero as well as the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas all projected to lose their seats.

With Mr Johnson insistent Britain exits the EU on 31st October to avoid party “extinction”, the polls also asked about Brexit, 42 percent agreed Britain should leave on that date without a deal if necessary and 41 percent said their should be no extension.

Mr Johnson is expected to say as his campaign launches: “Now is the time to unite this country and unite this society, and we cannot begin that task until we have delivered on the primary request of the people; the one big thing they have asked us to do. After three years and two missed deadlines, we must leave the EU on October 31.

“We simply will not get a result if we give the slightest hint that we want to go on kicking the can down the road with yet more delay.

“Delay means defeat. Delay means Corbyn. Kick the can and we kick the bucket.”

He is also expected to remind members he defeated Ken Livingstone in the 2008 London Mayoral election despite starting 17 points behind.

The projected majority is just four seats short of the 144 seat majority Margaret Thatcher gained in 1983, the largest postwar majority the Conservative Party has achieved.

However, this has been bettered by Clement Attlee’s 146 seat majority in 1945, and Tony Blair’s 167 seat and 179 seat majorities in 2001 and 1997 respectively.

Excluding wartime coalitions, the largest majority commanded in the Commons is 308 by the Conservatives lead by The Duke of Wellington and then by Sir Robert Peel in the 1830s.