General Election: Survey predicts defeats for MPs Julie Marson, Oliver Heald and Robert Halfon as Labour wins Hertford and Stortford, North East Herts and Harlow seats from Tories

A new survey of national voting intentions shows Hertford and Stortford’s Conservative MP Julie Marson losing her seat to Labour at the next General Election.

The Survation poll by Lodestone Communications also signals victory for Keir Starmer’s party in the neighbouring Harlow and North East Hertfordshire constituencies currently held by Tories Robert Halfon and Sir Oliver Heald respectively.

In the renamed North West Essex seat, formerly Saffron Walden, Kemi Badenoch, the current Business and Trade Secretary and minister for women and equalities, clings on, as does her Epping Forest colleague Dame Eleanor Laing.

The survey asked respondents: “If the Westminster election was taking place tomorrow, and there was a candidate from all political parties standing in your constituency, which party do you think you would vote for?”

The answers from 8,205 people were modelled into outcomes for all 632 newly-formed constituencies in Great Britain, giving Labour a Commons majority of 210 with 420 seats to the Conservatives’ 149 and 23 to the Liberal Democrats. Currently, of 650 seats in the Commons, the Conservatives hold 350 with a working majority of 56. Labour has 198 seats and the Lib Dems 15. The Green Party has one MP.

Respondents were also asked how they would vote if the contest was between Labour and the Conservatives and no other party stood a realistic chance of winning the seat. The results show that under this scenario in England, Labour would win 458 seats.

The results have been warmly welcomed by Hertford and Stortford’s Labour Party. Based on the survey, the party – which has yet to announce its local candidate – is predicted to take 48% of votes against 32% for Conservative Marson, 13% for Lib Dem candidate Helen Campbell, 3% for Green Party hopeful Nick Cox and 2% for Reform UK, whose candidate is currently listed as former Sawbridgeworth town councillor John Burmicz. In a two-horse race, the survey predicts Labour would take 54% of the vote with 36% going to the Tories.

Labour spokesman Josh Dean said: “People in Hertford and Stortford have been let down by an absentee Tory MP and a Government without direction. Amid the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, our residents, businesses, charities and voluntary organisations have been left to fend for themselves while the Tories are missing in action.

“We welcome this poll, but we are not complacent. Residents can see that ours is a changed Labour Party, focused on the issues affecting working people in communities like ours and ready to usher in a decade of national renewal with a compelling vision for a better Britain. But we know that we have to earn every vote and that’s what we intend to do.

“Residents in our communities deserve better than the Tories. The next Labour Government will switch on Great British Energy to cut energy bills, deliver good jobs and tackle the cost-of-living crisis for our residents, get the economy growing again, with support for the local businesses integral to our community, and get the NHS back on its feet with the biggest expansion of the workforce in its history to cut waiting times.

“It’s time for change in Hertford and Stortford at the next General Election, with a local Labour MP firmly on the side of our residents and working with the next Labour Government to deliver for them.

“The polls show that we can win, and recent by-election victories in Mid Beds and Tamworth show that Labour is the only party that can beat the Tories in rural market town seats like ours. The coming election will be our best chance in a generation to elect a genuinely local MP and only a vote for Labour can beat the Tories and effect real change in our community.”

The Survation results were generated using MRP – multilevel regression and post-stratification – which produces estimates of opinion and attitudes for small defined geographic areas. It works by combining information from large national samples with ONS and Census data.

Lib Dem candidate Helen Campbell, a Hertfordshire County Council member for St Albans North, said: “MRP models should be taken with a pinch of salt as they extrapolate a national poll survey down to individual constituencies and often the results tell us what choice the modellers have made rather than what voters are saying.

“These types of national models often don’t capture local circumstances. Until recently, the Liberal Democrats were the official opposition on East Herts Council and now we jointly run it. Liberal Democrats are also the official opposition on the county council and had the highest vote share across the county in 2023.

“Voters across Hertfordshire have had enough of broken promises from a Conservative party that has let them down and no longer represents them, and I’m pleased to give them the chance to elect a new MP who represents them properly."

Cllr Cox, an East Herts Council member for Ware Trinity and a Stanstead St Margarets parish councillor, said the MRP method took no account of local circumstances such as the Green Party becoming the largest on the district council in May, ending 28 years of Tory dominance.

He said: “The residents of our constituency told the Tories where to go in May and I’m confident they’ll do the same again in the General Election – particularly because we’ve already shown that Greens can quickly drive forward changes and improvements for our district after just six months at East Herts Council and at Ware and Hertford town councils.

“Voters know that when it comes to revitalising our NHS and protecting us from the harm caused both by the cost-of-living crisis and climate crisis, we need to get rid of this shambolic Government as quickly as possible.

“There’s no doubt that this is now a marginal seat, but it’s ridiculous to extrapolate from national data that it will fall to Labour when they only gained three seats in the May elections and we gained 17. In the Hertford and Stortford constituency, a Green Party vote is the only vote that will count.”

In North West Essex (formerly Saffron Walden), the Conservatives are predicted to take 41% of the votes with 27% to Labour, 21% to the Lib Dems, 8% to Reform UK and 2% to the Green Party. However, in a head-to-head, that narrows to 44% Conservative and 40% Labour with tactical voting.

In December 2019’s General Election, Kemi Badenoch polled 39,714 votes to beat Lib Dem Mike Hibbs (12,120) in second, Labour's Tom van de Bilt (8,305) third and the Green Party's Coby Wing (2,947) fourth. Her majority was 27,594, up 2,628 from 24,966 in the June 2017 General Election, when she was first elected.

As in Hertford and Stortford, the North West Essex Labour candidate is yet to be named.

Vice-chair Ben Cavanagh said: “It’s clear from this poll that residents are tired of being taken for granted by their absentee MP who is more interested in stoking culture wars in London than fighting for better public services here. Even if she remains in post after the General Election, tactical voting by local people could seriously reduce her chances of winning the next Tory leadership contest by reducing her majority to single digits.”

Cllr Geoffrey Sell, leader of Uttlesford District Council’s Liberal Democrat group, said: “MRP polls are relatively new and give an understanding of a nation’s political views. What they don't do is what constituency polls tell you what is happening on the ground in a particular area. I am very sceptical that Labour will win North West Essex. All the available evidence points against this.”

He pointed out that the Saffron Walden constituency, formed in 1885, had never been held by Labour. It was a Liberal seat until 1922 and has been true blue Tory ever since. Even in Labour landslides in 1945, 1966 and 1997, the party failed to win in Walden, and since 1974, Liberal or Liberal Democrats have taken second place on all but two occasions – 2015 and 2017.

Cllr Sell said his party had five “principal councillors” in the constituency and Labour had none. The Lib Dems would announce their candidate to face Mrs Badenoch in the “next seven days”, he added.

Green Party candidate Edward Gildea said: “It is clear that Labour will win the next [general] election. Greens are doing very well in several constituencies and will be fighting to take advantage of the turning tide and persuade people that a Labour Government will need a small group of Green MPs to keep up the pressure on them, representing humanity's long-term interests, the interests of our children and challenging any short-term policies or attempts to slow down what now needs to be an urgent transition.”

He predicted many disillusioned Conservative voters would stay at home, a few on the right wing would turn to Reform UK but lifelong Tories would be unable to vote Labour and would turn to the Lib Dems as a more palatable option.

Mr Gildea said: “I’m hoping that many taking the climate crisis seriously and beginning to be concerned for their children and grandchildren will vote Green.”

Grant St Clair-Armstong, listed as the Reform UK candidate for North West Essex on the party’s website, has been invited to comment.

Neither Julie Marson nor Kemi Badenoch has responded to the Indie’s invitation to comment on the Survation results.