LONDON: Three opinion polls on Wednesday predicted a record defeat for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives at a July 4 election, forecasting the Labour Party would comfortably win a large majority after 14 years in opposition.
Polling by YouGov showed Keir Starmer’s Labour was on track to win 425 parliamentary seats in Britain’s 650-strong House of Commons, the most in its history. Savanta predicted 516 seats for Labour and More in Common gave it 406.
YouGov had the Conservatives on 108 and the Liberal Democrats on 67, while Savanta predicted the Conservatives would take 53 parliamentary seats and the Liberal Democrats 50. More in Common forecast 155 and 49 seats respectively.
Chris Hopkins, Political Research Director at Savanta, said its projection put Labour on course “for a historic majority.”
The three polls were so-called multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) surveys, an approach that uses voters’ age, gender, education and other variables to predict results in every British voting district. Pollsters used the method to successfully predict the 2017 British election result.
They are largely in line with previous surveys predicting a Labour victory, but show the scale of the Conservatives’ defeat could be even worse than previously thought.
YouGov’s forecast of 108 seats for the Conservatives was around 32 lower than its previous poll two weeks earlier.
Both Savanta and YouGov predicted that the party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher could be left with the lowest number of seats in its near 200-year history contesting elections.
Sunak, who in a final throw of the dice last week pledged to cut 17 billion pounds of taxes for working people if re-elected,
has failed to turn the polls around so far in a campaign littered with missteps.
His task has been made harder by the surprise mid-campaign return to frontline politics by prominent Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, a right-wing populist, whose Reform UK party threatens to split the right-of-center vote.
Britain has a first-past-the-post electoral system, meaning Reform could pick up millions of votes across the country without winning any individual seats.
YouGov predicted Reform would win five seats and Savanta none. More in Common did not give a figure for Reform.
The Savanta poll, published by the Telegraph newspaper, said Sunak could even lose his own parliamentary seat in northern England, once considered a safe Conservative constituency, with the contest currently too close to call.
Sunak has acknowledged that people are frustrated with him and his party after more than a decade in power, dominated at times by political turmoil and scandal.
All three surveys projected several senior government ministers, including finance minister Jeremy Hunt, were on course to lose their seats.
Most opinion polls currently place Keir Starmer’s Labour about 20 percentage points ahead of the governing Conservatives in the national vote share.
Other polls in recent days have also presented a grim picture for Sunak, with one pollster predicting “electoral extinction” for the Conservatives.
UK PM Sunak’s Conservatives set for heavy election defeat, polls forecast
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UK PM Sunak’s Conservatives set for heavy election defeat, polls forecast
- Polling by YouGov showed Keir Starmer’s Labour was on track to win 425 parliamentary seats in Britain’s 650-strong House of Commons
- Savanta poll, published by the Telegraph newspaper, said Sunak could even lose his own parliamentary seat in northern England
8 in 10 British Muslims face ‘financial faith penalty’ when seeking home finance, survey finds
- Restricted choices plague potential buyers
LONDON: Eight in 10 British Muslims say their home finance choices are restricted because of their faith, according to a new national survey that highlighted what researchers describe as a growing “financial faith penalty” in the UK housing market.
The report, published by Islamic home finance fintech firm Offa, found that 80 percent of Muslim respondents believe their religious beliefs limit their access to suitable home finance, while those who do use Islamic products often face slower decisions, heavier paperwork and poorer customer experiences than in the conventional mortgage market.
Based on surveys of 1,000 British Muslims conducted by Muslim Census, and 2,000 non-Muslims carried out by OnePoll, the research calls on providers, brokers and policymakers to modernize Islamic home finance and improve access to Sharia-compliant products.
Among the 24.3 percent of British Muslims who have used Islamic home finance, just 5 percent said they had received a same-day decision.
Some 62 percent waited up to two weeks, while 33 percent waited more than 15 days, including 16 percent who waited over a month.
Long decision times were cited as the biggest challenge by 28 percent of respondents, followed by excessive paperwork (22.6 percent) and poor customer service (18.9 percent).
Islamic home finance differs from conventional mortgages by avoiding interest and steering investment away from sectors considered harmful to society, including gambling, alcohol, tobacco, arms trading and animal testing.
Sagheer Malik, chief commercial officer and managing director of home finance at Offa, said the findings showed British Muslims were being underserved by outdated systems.
Malik said: “Property is the asset class of choice for many of the UK’s 3.87 million Muslims, both as a route to generational wealth and as a long-term financial foundation, yet our insightful research report reveals that British Muslims are being underserved and deterred by slow, outdated and opaque Islamic home finance provision.
“This is not a niche concern. It goes to the heart of financial fairness and inclusion in modern Britain.”
He added that Muslims deserved Sharia-compliant products that matched mainstream standards on “price, speed and simplicity.”
Despite strong demand, uptake remains low.
Only 12.8 percent of British Muslims surveyed said they currently use Islamic home finance, with a further 11.5 percent having done so in the past. More than three quarters (75.7 percent) have never used it.
Faith plays a central role in financial decisions, with 94.2 percent saying it is important that their financial products align with their ethical or religious beliefs. Yet more than half of those using conventional mortgages said they felt unhappy or uneasy about doing so because of their faith.
The study also found that British Muslims share similar home ownership aspirations to the wider population, with 79.1 percent citing the desire to provide a stable home for their family, while 18.6 percent said building generational wealth was their main motivation. Only 2.2 percent said they did not want to own a home.
The report suggests Islamic finance could appeal beyond Muslim communities. While 64 percent of non-Muslim respondents had never heard of Islamic home finance, 63 percent said they favored its ethical principles once explained.
Younger generations were the most receptive, with 43 percent of Generation Z and 37 percent of millennials saying they would consider using Islamic home finance, compared with just 7 percent of baby boomers. More than three quarters of Gen Z and 72 percent of millennials also said it was important that their finance provider avoided investing in ethically harmful sectors.
Offa said the findings pointed to an opportunity to expand ethical finance in the UK, provided the industry can deliver faster, simpler and more transparent services.
