THE SNP is predicted to win 57 of Scotland's 59 seats at the next General Election in 2024, according to a new poll.

Such a result would be one higher than the 56 MPs the party netted in the 2015 ballot when it triumphed after losing the independence referendum the previous September.

Today's poll also forecast that Boris Johnson is on course to lose his own seat with the SNP predicted to potentially play a kingmaker role in forming the next UK government with neither the Tories nor Labour likely to win an outright majority in 2024.

This is the first detailed survey of the public's perception of the Prime Minister's handling of the recently concluded Brexit talks and the Covid-19 pandemic after he reversed plans to allow families to meet up at Christmas in parts of southern England to combat the spread of the virus.

More than 22,000 people were surveyed in a closely watched poll constituency-by-constituency poll over a four-week period in December, which was conducted by the research data company Focaldata and published by the Sunday Times.

The so-called multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) poll found the ruling Conservatives would lose 81 seats, wiping out the 80-seat majority. This would leave the Conservatives with 284 seats, while the opposition Labour Party would win 282 seats, the poll showed.

The Prime Minister is at risk to lose his own seat of Uxbridge, west of London, the poll found.

Johnson won a resounding election victory in 2019 that allowed him to take Britain out of the European Union's orbit on New Year's Eve after almost half a century of close ties.

But Johnson's premiership may increasingly be defined by the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has already killed more than 74,000 people and crushed the economy.