Next General Election Odds: How low can the Tories go?

The General Election date is set and the betting markets are all pointing to a pretty convincing win for the Labour Party. So where is the value?

Neil Monnery dives into the Total Conservative Seat market which should see plenty of action over the coming weeks as part of Betfred Insights' coverage of the Next General Election…

All the polling data is fairly conclusive. Recent by-election results seem to back up that data. July 4 is not going to be a good day for the Tories and 14 years of Conservative Prime Ministers looks highly likely to end. One question that has been nagging away at the back of my consciousness though is, ‘Just how low can the Tories go?’

The 1997 landslide for Tony Blair’s New Labour saw the John Major-led Conservative Party drop down to 168 MPs but the betting markets are indicating that this time around, it could be even worse. 

100-149 MPs is rated as a 9/4 shot as of Thursday morning. This indicates that the odds see this as a 31% chance of happening. Had you said that after the 2019 General Election, the Tories were facing a 1997-style defeat, then not many would have believed you. 

It seems like just yesterday that Boris Johnson won a majority and the Conservative Party was riding high in the polls but a lot has happened over the past five years. Covid, the Downing Street Lockdown Parties, Economic challenges, the Liz Truss debacle and the change of leadership of the Labour Party are all factors that has seen the Red Rose rise and the Tory torch dim.

A result similar to the 1997 General Election is the second-favourite in the market, with 150-199 Tory MPs priced-up at 3/1, which ranks as a 25% chance.

Seeing the third-favourite of 50-99 at just 100/30 though is quite frankly mind-boggling. The Conservative Party have been the dominating force in British Politics for a century, with Labour having pockets of success but the undercurrent of change seems to be getting all the more noticeable. 

If you believe the polls then 50-99 seems like a fairly reasonable proposition but it would be one of the biggest collapses of a governing party in the modern era, anywhere in the world. 

Personally, I’d struggle to see the Conservative vote dissipate to such an extent and the talk of tactical voting feels like one that generates far more social media chatter than it does actual results. If a large proportion of the electorate do decide to vote for the best candidate to defeat the Tories, rather than for who they might want, it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the Tories could go down to double digits.

One factor that needs to be considered is just how many votes Reform UK are going to syphon away from the Tories. If they do indeed stand in every constituency and get 10%+ of the vote as the current polling seems to suggest that they will, then polling day will be a disaster for the Tories and 50-99 would very much be in play.

If you think that it really could be that bad for Rishi Sunak, then 0-49 is a 10/1 bet and that is rated as a 9% possibility. In that scenario, the 8/1 available on the Lib Dems to get the most seats outside of Labour would be an obvious play.

At this juncture however, I think the betting market has it spot on. 100-150 is the slight favourite over 150-199 and that feels about right. Will Rishi Sunak be able to confound the odds? We’ll see but it doesn’t look good for the Prime Minister right about now.

We’ll cover this ongoing story from now through to General Election day itself from our team here at Betfred Insights. Keep checking out our coverage from the Next Prime Minister markets through to key individual constituencies over the coming weeks as we follow the twists and turns from a betting perspective for the 2024 General Election in our Politics Betting Tips section.