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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is set to be handed the keys to No.10 tomorrow with his party forecast to win the general election by a substantial margin. The latest YouGov MRP poll forecasts Labour winning 431 seats, the Conservative Party 102 seats, with the Liberal Democrats in third place with 72 seats. According to YouGov there are 89 seats where the two top parties are within 5% of each other,
‘What does this mean in practice? Our range for the number of Conservative seats is between 78 and 129 seats, while our range for the Liberal Democrats is between 57 and 87. That means at one end of the realistic possibilities is that we wake up on Friday to find Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats) is Leader of the Opposition. At the other end of possibilities is that the Tories are in a secure second place. The most likely outcome is the Conservatives just over 100 seats, the Liberal Democrats on around 72.’
The polling stations will close tonight at 22:00 UK and counting begins immediately. The BBC estimates that the first seats will be declared around 23:00 UK with the vast majority of seats declared by 06:00 UK on Friday.
Sterling remains rangebound going into the election and will remain that way until the result is known. GBP/USD is trading on either side of 1.2750, boosted in part by a weaker US dollar. Wednesday’s US ISM report showed the economy contracting for the second time in the last three months, while the Business Activity Index slumped to 49.6 from 61.2, the first month of contraction since May 2020.
US markets are closed today for Independence Day, while tomorrow sees the latest US Jobs Report released at 13:30 UK.
GBP/USD Daily Price Chart
