ALISTER Jack is on course to lose his seat at the next General Election with the SNP predicted to win a record 57 MPs, according to a new poll.

The survey forecast that the Secretary of State for Scotland would be among the Scottish Tories ousted with the SNP taking his seat of Dumfries and Galloway.

An SNP win of all but two Scottish seats and with neither Labour nor the Tories set for a majority, the result would pave the way for a Labour-SNP coalition government.

Some 57 SNP MPs would be one higher than the 56 MPs Nicola Sturgeon’s party netted in the 2015 ballot when it triumphed after losing the independence referendum the previous September.

The poll also forecast that Boris Johnson will 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 four years.

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.

More than 22,000 people were surveyed in a closely watched poll constituency-by-constituency 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 Labour would win 282 seats, an overall increase of 82.

The findings will also be interpreted as a vote of confidence in Sturgeon, who has won plaudits for her response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Justin Ibbett, founder of Focaldata, said: “One year on from their stunning General Election triumph, it is clear that the Conservatives already have a lot of work to do if they are to replicate their 2019 success in future elections.

“The SNP would appear to be the real winners. Not only do they win all but two Scottish constituencies, but the most likely outcome is a Labour-SNP coalition government, which would have an overall majority of just over 20 seats.”

According to the poll, the LibDems would crumble to just two seats in Westminster, down from 11 won in the last General Election.

Johnson won a resounding election victory in December 2019 – months after succeeding Theresa May as Tory leader and Prime Minister – in a development which allowed him to take Britain out of the European Union’s orbit on Hogmanay 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.

The SNP made big gains across Scotland at the 2019 General Election, with Sturgeon saying the country had sent a “clear message” on a second independence referendum. The party won 48 seats after securing 45% of the vote – 8.1% more than in the last General Election in 2017, when it won 35 seats.

In December 2019 the Scottish Conservatives won six seats and the LibDems four, while Labour lost six seats to be reduced to one MP again, Ian Murray in Edinburgh South. Murray was left as the only Scottish Labour MP after the 2015 election when it lost 40 of its 41 seats.

Neale Hanvey’s victory in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath was counted as an SNP gain from Labour because he was on the ballot paper as an SNP candidate. Hanvey had been suspended by the party over allegations he made anti-Semitic posts on social media. He initially sat as an independent and returned to the SNP after he apologised “unreservedly”.

Overall, yesterday’s poll put Labour marginally ahead of the Tories on 37.7% of the vote, with the Tories on 35.6%. The results will stir unrest among Tory MPs about the performance of the PM and come just days after he narrowly avoided leaving the EU without a trade deal. The trade agreement on Christmas Eve came after months of stalemate that left businesses in a state of uncertainty.