United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[LabourJersey]

If Sunak calls for an election this week, would it be on June 6 or June 13? Unclear on the timeline.

[LabourJersey]

If Sunak calls for an election this week, would it be on June 6 or June 13? Unclear on the timeline.

It's not the timing of the election call which settles the date, it's the Dissolution of Parliament: the General Election is held 25 working days after the dissolution. Because of the public holidays on 6 May and 27 May, this means that for a 6 June election Parliament would have to be dissolved tomorrow (unlikely I think even if the now scotched rumours turn out to be true after all) and for a 13 June election it would be dissolved on Wednesday 8 May.

The Commons Library has a list of the dissolution dates for each possible General Election date. NB a public holiday in any part of the UK is excluded from the definition of "working day", which is why the days of the week shift from Thursday to Wednesday once 12 July comes into the election period.

Really helpful, thanks!

[LabourJersey]

What made Sunak decide to have a July election?

He's bad at politics and incredibly arrogant

More specifically - he apparently saw the rate of inflation has slightly slowed, and in his mind he thought "we're turning it around! Let's seize the momentum!"

Very dumb decision

[LabourJersey]

What made Sunak decide to have a July election?

He's bad at politics and incredibly arrogant

More specifically - he apparently saw the rate of inflation has slightly slowed, and in his mind he thought "we're turning it around! Let's seize the momentum!"

Very dumb decision

He should have waited to the fall to call the election. By doing it now it guarantees a Labour win.

I mean, practically any time would "guarantee" a Labour win at this rate. But this timing is particularly dumb.

[LabourJersey]

https://Twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1793336678096019874?t=QU1_O62L4ZAVCm0P6r...

Selections are going to come fast now. Here's the Lib-Dems choosing someone asap for a target seat. And Corbyns former seat becomes even more of a stitch-up:

https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1793378252154913030?t=l8uSukHrwSpAga0xdI...

what's the deadline for selections?

[LabourJersey]

We should also note that there is, of course, also an election on in Northern Ireland and that an unusually high proportion of seats seem likely to be competitive this time around.

Wish that we’d get some polling. I’d be interested to see if Alliance can get a second seat. No idea what else to expect until we know if there’s any seats that parties stand down in.

Belfast East: boundary changes probably marginally help Alliance and they must have a decent chance

Belfast South & Mid Down: if it weren't for tactical voting this would be very interesting, but as it is the SDLP will probably hold comfortably

Belfast West: zzzzz

Belfast North: boundary changes help SF a little and in the absence of anything splitting their vote they should hold on

North Down: I think Farry (Alliance) is favoured but there is this challenge from Independent Unionist Alex Easton.

Strangford: boundary changes help Alliance (by bringing in heavily Catholic areas where they will hope to get tactical votes) but probably not by enough unless the DUP are having a real meltdown

Lagan Valley: I would be sceptical of Alliance's chances here if it weren't for the DUP's troubles, which I think give them a genuine chance

South Down: if the SDLP couldn't win this back in 2019 I doubt they do now

Newry & Armagh: see Belfast West

Upper Bann: DUP should be safe enough here

Fermanagh & South Tyrone: well, it's Fermanagh & South Tyrone, so close between SF and the UUP with the former favoured

West Tyrone: see Belfast West

Mid Ulster: see Belfast West

Foyle: I think the SDLP's huge win in 2019 was a one-off and SF are in with a chance of taking this back

East Derry: still pretty safe DUP

North Antrim: if the TUV were going to win anywhere it would be here, but I would be a bit surprised

East Antrim: another Alliance long shot, but I think it's less likely than Lagan Valley or Strangford

South Antrim: the UUP's best chance of taking a seat back from the DUP, and the latter's troubles mean they must actually have a decent chance

Interesting write-up. As someone who's visting NI in a couple weeks I'm very interested to see what it's like, particularly in campaign season

[LabourJersey]

Even if the Tories were re-elected, there would never be conscription in Northern Ireland. It's just not happening.

There wasn't in either World War for all the reasons that come to mind (as much about increasing the risk of Loyalist militias as enraging nationalists forced to swear allegiance to the King). An attempt to impose it in 1918 was never implemented after the uproar.

The relevance of NI is whether Sunak has a one sentence answer that justifies it not applying there, while being a requirement everywhere else.

Also curious about Sunak's evantual answer about this.

Would hardly be the first time that the Tories came up with a policy without considering the impact on NI.

[LabourJersey]

I saw a conversation elsewhere in which a Labour majority of 73 was predicted and one of the participants (who seemed to be pro-Labour or at least anti-Tory) was dismissive that it could be that high. I don't think most people and certainly not most of the media have clocked onto what a bloodbath this might be.

Good, honestly. Don't want voters to get complacent. It's to the interest of both Labour and frankly, civic health, that people think the election is competitive even if it isn't.

Definitely agree with this.

[LabourJersey]

Debates schedule is starting to firm up:

• 3rd June (STV) - Scottish leaders debate
• 4th June (ITV) - Starmer vs Sunak head-to-head debate
• 7th June (BBC) - 7 party leader/representatives debate
• 12th June (Sky News) - townhall-style leaders event
• 13th June (ITV) - 7 party leader/representatives debate
• 20th June (BBC) - Question Time Leaders Special
• 26th June (BBC) - Starmer vs Sunak head-to-head debate

More devolved nation debates to be announced, but looks like most of the national events have been set.

I'll be in the UK for the June 12th debate (In Belfast, of all places!). Will be fascinating and surreal, as a longtime observer of UK politics, to be a first hand observer of a UK general election

[LabourJersey]

Interesting news from Tory selection in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Dan Jellyman was placed on a shortlist of one, but after the selection meeting he was not chosen. So no candidate, and no shortlist right now (deadline in less than 48 hours).

Given that they ought to have known there was a possibility of a vacancy there, that is borderline unbelievable.

What does the local Tory party do here? Are they logistically able to make a selection between now and 4pm Friday?

[LabourJersey]

It becomes a bit more believable when your incumbent only announces he's stepping down 10 days after the election announcement...

I suspect we will have at least one constituency without a Tory candidate due to some basic oversight or invalid signature. The Tories are lucky only 10 signatures are needed for candidacy -- in Canada in this situation they would be utterly cooked.

But isn't the point of shortlist for every constituency that parties don't have to deal with this situation?

[LabourJersey]

New Survation MRP
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1802049409984745504
LAB 456
CON 72
LD 56
SNP 37
RFM 7
PC 2
GRN 1

The 7 Reform seats are :
Ashfield
Clacton
Exmouth and Exeter East
Great Yarmouth
Mid Leicestershire
North West Norfolk
South Suffolk

https://www.survation.com/mrp-update-first-mrp-since-farages-return/

42,000 interviews is impressive!

And this appears to be a true best case scenario for Reform, and close to absolute worst case scenario for the Tories

[LabourJersey]

On the other subject discussed in this thread recently, it is worth considering an issue that has been subject to remarkably little interest or analysis in the media elsewhere: who exactly are all these people who have been switching their votes to Labour? We know that it is not a continuation of the pro-European vote that was such a feature of the last election, while we have fairly strong indicators from local elections that Labour does not presently have the mysterious extra appeal to Middle England that the Party did under (Sir) Mr Tony. We know that it is not a continuation of the special 'positive' factors under Corbyn: there are very sound reasons to believe that the Party will poll rather worse with BoBo electors, and that not only will the unusual consolidation of Muslim voters not be repeated but that there will be a substantial drop in support there. Casting the net a little wider, the general feeling is that amongst minority voters in general it will be a bit of a wash: great improvements from some, treading water with others, continued or new troubles with others still. So, who does this leave, exactly? Because it certainly isn't the actual hard core of the Conservative Party's electorate that has been moving over: it may truly be crumbling, but if it crumbles at the polling station for real, those votes will not move directly to Labour. So, again, who does this leave, exactly?

My understanding is that the number of people actually switching may not be that many?

Labour in 2017 got 40% of the vote. This year they'll probably get 43-44%, so 3-4% of the electorate moving in their direction.

Admittedly that's still a decent amount of voters, but I think the biggest element of this election is the Tories completely cratering rather than Labour sweeping up the electorate.

[LabourJersey]

https://twitter.com/nowooski/status/1803709963564437804?s=46

To be fair, Labour isn't winning as much as the UK is just beyond sick of the incompetent party that was in charge for 14 years. Starmer isn't even well-liked, they just can't get worse.

Yeah. I’m sure they would be doing so much better with Corbyn, and that he had nothing at all to do with his party losing the last two times despite the Tories being unpopular even back then, the second time after blowing an initial poll lead so Boris Johnson of all people could win a landslide.

Yeah, I bet Labour would be winning at least 517 seats with Corbyn at the helm, not a measly 516. Indeed that’s not really even “winning” anyway. Obviously. Duh. Kinda pathetic to pretend that a 450+ seat majority, one of the greatest landslides in the history of the nation so massive that it might well drive your opposition into extinction, is somehow “winning.”

I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but the election hasn't happened yet.

Labour might win 516 seats. It may win 400. It may "only" win 350.

We can't have these retrospectic discussions about Labour's campaign and strategy until the campaign, you know, *ends*