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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party is on course for a worse general election result than in 1997. Citing a survey from YouGov, a report by the news agency Reuters on Wednesday (Apr 3) said that the Conservative Party would win just 155 seats while Labour would get 403 seats. The total number of seats in the British parliament are 650.

The survey said that Prime Minister Sunak was still struggling to gain momentum after a tax-cutting budget last month and ahead of local elections in May. The survey projected that the Conservatives would score fewer seats than they did in 1997 when they won just 165 seats in a landslide defeat to Labour Party led by Tony Blair.

Also read | Rishi Sunak says he is ‘totally up for the fight’ to win UK general elections

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Meanwhile, the survey also projected that Labour would fall short of the 418 seats won under Blair, with the projected 154-seat majority also less than the 179 majority it won in 1997.

Hunt, Shapps and others predicted to lose seats

The survey showed that 11 cabinet ministers including Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt, Defence Minister Grants Shapps, and Transport Minister Mark Harper losing ground. More than 18,700 people were interviewed for the survey between March 7 and March 27. The number is many times larger than regular opinion polling and YouGov said the method correctly predicted the previous two elections.

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The survey further said that the headline election result based on the model would see Labour gain 41% of the vote share and Conservatives get 24%. However, it pointed out that the results could look different to regular polling due to its treatment of people who do not currently have a voting intention.

Also watch | Can Rishi Sunak stage the biggest electoral comeback in decades?

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The survey's findings came weeks after Sunak said that general elections would not be held in May, in the strongest indication yet that the national vote would take place later this year.

The prime minister has previously been reluctant to specify when general elections would be held. He said in January that his "working assumption" was that it would take place in the second half of the year.

(With inputs from agencies)