Could Boris Johnson lose his seat? If Lib Dems and Greens pull together in Uxbridge, definitely

Boris Johnson has opted not to vote for himself despite a campaign to oust him. Photo: PA - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

With YouGov’s most comprehensive poll of the election placing Boris Johnson barely ahead, how much should the prime minister be worried about his own seat instead of getting new Tory voters across the country?

The final days of the Tory campaign have been centred around attempting to take votes from Labour strongholds in the North of England like Grimsby, while the party floods social media with highly personalised, potentially misleading ads.

But it has been a shocking few weeks for the party, with scandal after scandal de-railing their campaign on a near daily basis, and it’s finally starting to take a toll on the polls.

YouGov’s final multilevel regression and post-stratification poll (MRP), which accurately predicted the 2017 election, now warns that a hung parliament is a real possibility.

And while the Tories are still generally expected to be ahead, their majority over Labour has fallen by a half in the last two weeks, with YouGov predicting the Tories will only have 13 seats over the threshold needed to form a majority government.

But a hung parliament is well within the margin of error, and many senior Tory members are facing knife-edge threats in their seats, including the prime minister.

YouGov predict Johnson is currently on track for a 9% majority in his Uxbridge constituency, a figure which exactly matches the combined vote share of the Lib Dems and Greens.

With a number of tactical voting groups and guides putting this seat at the forefront of the campaign, what can be done to oust Boris Johnson from Uxbridge?

According to the more than 130 pro-EU groups who have already said Jo Swinson should have pulled out of Uxbridge and backed the Labour candidate, Ali Milani, the responsibility sits on the shoulders of the smaller parties.

If those intending to vote for the smaller parties – namely the Lib Dems – can instead vote tactically and support Milani, it would only take a few thousand seats to oust Boris Johnson.

In fact, across the UK, anti-Brexit campaigners have claimed fewer than 41,000 tactical votes in 36 marginal seats could stop Boris Johnson’s majority entirely.

The nation is seeing an unprecedented swing towards putting party politics aside and voting tactically to reduce the harm of five more years under the Tories and a devastating Brexit, which could cost up to £28bn a year (or £350m a week, ironically).

Now, the anti-Brexit website InFacts argues that if you look at the maths, you’ll see: “The Tories are projected to get 52% of the seats in our parliament despite the fact that they and their allies in the Brexit Party will get only 46% of the vote.”

While the Tories have halved their majority, previously expecting a 68-seat majority, InFacts say: “Their share of the vote hasn’t changed in the intervening period.

“That suggests that pro-referendum voters are getting smarter in backing the candidates with the best chance of beating the Tories – but not yet smart enough.”

If those intending to vote Green or Lib Dem in Uxbridge can hold their noses and cast their ballot for Ali Milani (as Labour voters will need to do in Raab’s seat, for instance), we could see the last of Boris Johnson and many other top Tories.