The Conservatives will lose 10 Kent MPs and the Liberal Democrats will win their first-ever seat in the county, according to a major new poll.

YouGov predicts Tory strongholds Ashford and Folkestone & Hythe will turn red while Labour’s Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield will go from having the smallest majority to the largest.

The pollster says Labour would win 403 seats nationwide if a general election was held today, in a huge boost for leader Sir Keir Starmer.

It pushes him closer to repeating Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide victory, 27 years since the party’s longest-serving prime minister first took office.

Kent is traditionally considered a Conservative heartland - but they are predicted to hold on to just seven seats in the county, in a significant blow for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Every Medway constituency is set to go to Labour.

Among the Tories facing defeat is former business secretary Greg Clark, who is expected to lose his Tunbridge Wells seat to the Liberal Democrats.

The bruising results for the Conservatives would see Labour hoover up 10 constituencies: Ashford, Canterbury, Chatham and Aylesford, Dartford, Dover and Deal, East Thanet, Folkestone and Hythe, Gillingham and Rainham, Gravesham and Rochester and Strood.

The Tories would keep hold of Faversham and Mid Kent, Herne Bay and Sandwich, Maidstone and Malling, Sevenoaks, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, and Tonbridge, as well as securing the new Weald of Kent constituency - giving them seven seats in total.

Former deputy prime minister and Tory heavyweight Damian Green is forecast to narrowly lose his Ashford seat.

He has a whopping majority of 24,029 - one of the largest in Kent behind Tonbridge MP Tom Tugendhat and Sittingbourne’s Gordon Henderson. However, Mr Green’s electorate is different to 2019 following boundary changes, with Tenterden and the surrounding area now part of the Weald of Kent seat.

Mr Green told KentOnline: “Polls are a snapshot, not a prediction.

“I am continuing to work very hard for the people of Ashford and the surrounding areas, and I will put my case for re-election when the general election is called.”

Other Tories predicted to be ousted by Labour are former tech junior minister Damian Collins, leadership contender Rehman Chishti and ex-schools minister Kelly Tolhurst.

The Lib Dems are on course for a historic victory in Tunbridge Wells, which would be their first Kent seat since the party was formed in 1988.

Tunbridge Wells candidate Mike Martin said: “The latest YouGov polling shows the Lib Dems 4% ahead of the Conservatives in Tunbridge Wells.

“This matches what we have been hearing on the doorstep over the last two years: the Conservatives have lost their way, the Labour vote is small, and lifelong Conservatives are planning on voting Lib Dem as they are excited about our plans for Tunbridge Wells.”

Nationally, the party is expected to win 49 seats in a significant resurgence, increasing its number of MPs by 34.

It comes after the 2010 coalition with the Conservatives damaged its electoral standing and it lost 48 of its 56 constituencies at the 2015 general election.

Meanwhile, Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield is expected to see her majority increase from the smallest in Kent to the largest.

She currently holds the county’s only Labour seat.

“Of course, recent polls are quite encouraging, and after seven years as the only Labour MP in Kent, I look forward to having some colleagues in Parliament,” she told KentOnline.

“But working hard to help constituents, tackling local concerns and national campaigns is extremely important and I'm not going to sit back and take this predicted increase for granted.

“The only poll that really matters is the one on election day, whenever that may be.

“Just like in 2017 and 2019, I’ll be working tirelessly to earn voters’ trust.

“Change is possible if people vote for it, and Labour is ready to deliver, with our plan to make work pay, tackle the cost of living, restore our environment, renew public services, and rebuild our economy.”

Miss Duffield is expected to storm to victory with 56% of the vote, 33% ahead of the Conservatives who pre-2017 had held the Canterbury seat for decades.

At the other end of the scale, several electoral battles across the country could go down to the wire.

Labour are just 1% in front of Mr Green in Ashford, while the Tories are 1% ahead in Sittingbourne and Sheppey.

There is just 2% in it in both Chatham and Aylesford and Herne Bay and Sandwich. Labour are 4% ahead in Folkestone and Hythe, while the Conservatives are forecast to win by 5% in Maidstone and Malling.

Looking at the wider national picture, the Greens would continue to hold Brighton Pavilion and are also still pushing Labour hard in the newly created Bristol Central seat. But it is predicted Sir Keir Starmer’s party will claim victory there.

Reform UK is not projected to win any seats, despite its growing voting intention.

But it is polling in second place in 36 constituencies. Although none of these are in Kent, it is getting between 10% and 19% in each seat in the county.

The party’s deputy leader Ben Habib told KentOnline polls are a “static picture of where we are at the moment”.

“The fact is that the political wind is in Reform UK's sails,” he said.

“The Tories are sinking everywhere, Reform UK is rising everywhere.

“It will not be long before these polls show that we are taking seats. We are on the ascendency.”

Reform UK’s Maidstone candidate Paul Thomas added: “This is very much an early prediction and does not take account of the responses we are hearing on the doorsteps.

“Compared with the Tories woeful record in government, Reform UK are promoting a positive message.

“We are confident our draft 'Contract with You', which is open for comment on our website, will demonstrate that Reform UK has common sense, inter-related, fully-costed and, most importantly, deliverable policies.”

Elsewhere, YouGov projects Labour to comfortably be the largest party in Scotland, winning 28 seats to the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) 19. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats would win five each.

Plaid Cymru are set to secure four seats in Wales.

Nationally, YouGov predicts Labour will receive 41% of the vote, the Conservatives 24%, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK 12% each, and the Greens 7%.

The findings are based on vote intention data collected and analysed from 18,761 British adults interviewed from March 7 to 27.

Another recent poll, carried out by Survation for the internationalist Best for Britain campaign group, predicted the Conservatives would keep just six Kent seats with Labour taking 12.

That 15,000-person survey was used to create a seat-by-seat breakdown across the country, and predicted Rishi Sunak’s party could be left with fewer than 100 MPs.

Defeat for the Conservatives at the general election has already been predicted by Sarah Hudson, the chairman of the party’s constituency associations in Kent.

She previously told KentOnline the Tories do not have enough time to turn their fortunes around before voters go to the poll – which is expected to be in the autumn.

She also said bringing back Boris Johnson as leader would not boost the party’s prospects.