New Forest Tories Sir Julian Lewis and Sir Desmond Swayne would win New Forest East and West seats in next election but with slashed majorities, YouGov MRP model poll shows

A NEW election poll shows the New Forest sticking with its Tory incumbents – but with a significantly reduced majority.

Sir Desmond Swayne and Sir Julian Lewis romped home with 63.8% and 64.5% majorities respectively for their New Forest East and West constituencies in 2019, but they have some work to do to match that if these figures are representative.

A new YouGov MRP model, commissioned by Conservative Britain Alliance, shows that nationally Labour would win a large majority were the election held now.

The figures show New Forest would remain blue, but with Sir Desmond on 35% and Sir Julian 34%.

The remaining figures for New Forest West show Lib Dems in second with 23%, Labour third on 20%, Reform UK 12% and Green 9%

New Forest East has Labour and Lib Dems each on 21%, Reform UK on 13% and Green 8%

The model uses data from 14,110 respondents answering between 12th December and 4th January, and would see Keir Starmer enter Downing Street with a 120-seat majority, Labour winning 385 Commons seats.

This would be a 183-seat increase for Labour since the 2019 election, with the Conservatives falling to 169, losing 196 seats.

New Forest West Lib Dem candidate and current Lymington & Pennington mayor Jack Davies said the results put his party “within stone’s throw of the Conservatives” and pleaded for supporters of rival parties to back the Lib Dems instead.

Sir Desmond refused to comment, saying he “never comments on polls”.

The A&T also contacted Sir Julian Lewis and a local Labour party spokesperson for comment.