UK General Discussion: 2019 and onwards, The End of May

[vileplume]

This is the first poll with the Conservatives not being in either 1st or 2nd place

https://twitter.com/flaviblepolitic/status/1127305995418574849

No there were a few polls where they were third in the early 80s (when the SDP were surging) and in 1993 at the height of the Major government's unpopularity. I don't think they've ever dropped as low as 19% though. The Tory+Labour share at 46% is the lowest I can find (previous low was 46.5% in a MORI poll in December 1981).

[vileplume]

From what I heard, the tories are basically ignoring the EU election campaign. There is too little at stake, and too many of their loyal voters are just voting Brexit to send a message to London/Brussels. Ignoring the election allows them to save face when the eventual loss occurs, and in their minds, their voters will just return when the country eventually leaves.

I wonder if they almost want to be crushed by the Brexit party so that they can push harder for Brexit.

I think the Tories are already well aware that pushing for a harder Brexit would benefit them politically, and if they were really eager to follow through with that, we would have left in March. As the 2017 election showed, Brexit is the only selling point for the Tories - as soon as Corbyn shifted the debate to other issues, their campaign crumbled. So, now that the Tories have failed on Brexit, they have plummeted in the polls. Potentially a future Brexiteer Tory leader might take that view, however.

The Tory campaign was a complete car crash too, this being more important than Corbyn running a good Labour campaign as 'oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them'. The 'dementia tax' alone probably cost them their majority.

[vileplume]

all you can say if that result did come to pass would be that three and four way marginals would become the norm, tactical voting would become impossible and there would be loads of fluke winners (and Onasyana/O'Mara style flameouts in the ensuing parliament) and high profile losses from both Labour and the Tories.

Agree that it would be far worse for the Tories than Labour though, because the former would have no real safe regions to fall back on - even blue counties like Surrey would collapse.

The places where the Tories would probably hold up best would be in affluent exurban/rural seats where the Brexit vote was around 50/50 or so. For Labour you're looking at minority and urban post-industrial working class areas. So in the event of both parties crashing, Labour do better than the Tories.

Would Corbyn lose if Labour got 19% and the Lib Dems 24%?

From Flavible Politics, inputting the data from the poll, Islington North would look like this

Labour: 32%
Brexit: 26%
Lib Dem: 22%
Green: 9%
CUK: 8%
Conservatives: 3%

As a bonus, here's Maidenhead as well (May's seat)

Conservative: 30%
Lib Dem: 29%
Brexit: 26%
Green: 6%
Labour: 6%
CUK: 1%
UKIP: 1%

Of course, take all of this with a huge amount of caution as models do break down with these huge swings. But Theresa May would be more likely to lose her seat than Corbyn. In fact, the Tories would only get 70 seats with these numbers

Well... maybe. In Corbyn's seat, BXP wouldn't do anywhere near that well, but the LDs would do much better (extremely heavily Remain seat), so the projection is probably way off. On the other hand, in May's seat, the projection is probably about right because it's the sort of seat where both the LDs and BXP would make substantial gains roughly proportionately to the national result (narrowly Remain seat).

Yeah, it's worth noting the Leave vote was less than 26% in the Corbyn's seat, so the Brexit Party only get about 5% or something. So you can see a path for the Lib Dems if Corbyn's vote is only at 32% or something.

OTOH CrabCake's point about it being somewhat deprived is valid (I was under the impression it was wholly an urbane progressive/champagne socialist area)

On that point, Chukka's probably one CUK MP that might hang on (as well as Wollastorm)

No Islington North is a young, ethnically diverse, very deprived constituency. Islington South & Finsbury is indeed a bit better off and has smatterings of the rich, Guardian reading, 'champagne socialist' types but it too is still a pretty deprived constituency with high levels of poverty and financial insecurity.

The reason why London is a Labour city is not because it is full of rich lefties but because it has as a whole has much high levels of poverty than much of the rest of the country, is very financially insecure primarily due to very high rents and low home ownership, is very ethnically diverse and is an extremely unequal place (the wealth is concentrated in a small minority of hands). Whilst the 'Islington metropolitan elite champagne socialists' trope does have a slither of truth to it (a number of Guardian columnists do indeed live in Islington as did Tony Blair) it is mostly a myth created by the right in order to discredit the left in working class provincial Britain. I'm surprised at how many people still fall for it especially those on the left.