Next UK General Election thread

[mileslunn]

I think the big problem for Labour is they need to pick up 64 seats to win a majority and if you just look at the marginals in England and Wales they would have to win some they lost by sizeable margins.  Otherwise beating the Tories in seats is easy, getting a majority seems a lot tougher.  The one way I could see them doing it, is make big gains in Scotland and win around 40 seats there as it seems big swings are more common in Scotland than England and Wales and then pick up another 30 seats in England/Wales.

A few questions in general for those more familiar to British politics:

1.  How did Labour pick up High Peak and Stroud as both seem quite rural and not the profile of ridings you would expect them to win in unless you have a Tony Blair like landslide.  In the case of Stroud was it more candidate than party and anything special about High Peak?

2.  How come Bournemouth and Poole urban area goes so massively Tory.  Yes the Tories won many urban ridings but usually they were close not blowouts and usually they got under 50% in most purely urban ridings unless they were outerlying suburbs of Birmingham or London

3.  Why is the London Commuter belt so conservative.  Is it more exurb thus semi rural as opposed to suburban as usually in North America suburbs tend to be bellwethers not heavily conservative.  Now true here in Canada in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa, the areas just beyond the urban/rural fringe tend to be some of the strongest Tory ridings think York-Simcoe, Carleton, or Langley-Aldergrove so far anyone familiar with Canada is the London commuter belt more akin to those ridings than a typical suburban one like say Burlington, Kanata-Carleton, or Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows which are only lean conservative not solid (they lost those in 2015).

[mileslunn]

There are people who are far more knowlegeable than me, but

Stroud is on an old coal field, which tends to lead to strong Labour support. It also has a large population of bohemian types, and countercultural and hippy type people - all of which come together to give Labour a chance. Stroud also voted remain in the Brexit referedum, and those types of areas swung heavily to Labour across the board.

Interesting although they did also have a former incumbent.  I noticed in the Southwest the Liberal Democrats tended to make rural Conservative ridings competitive where they had a past incumbent such as in St Ives and North Devon but in others like Yeovil and Thornbury & Yate where they lacked an incumbent they did poorly.  I could see how Stroud would be less conservative than other rural ridings but the size of the difference seems large.  In the North you see some rural ridings going Labour, but it seems once you get south of Birmingham and Nottingham it's largely Tory and only LibDems when they do well can win in rural areas.  Labour might win a few mixed ones like Peterborough, Canterbury or Milton Keynes North (which they narrowly missed) but those types are probably over 90% urban and I suspect the rural parts went heavily Tory in those ridings.

The London commuter belt is Tory because, fundamentally, Britain, like most of Europe, has a different political structure to the US. Middle class Brits are still a strong Tory demographic, and working class voters still vote heavily Labour. So Surrey and the like are Tory as a result of being hugely wealthy. The UK does not really have the American culture style influence behind voting patterns (plenty of pundits assured us that the culture war gap would emerge this time round, but it didnt, working class areas stayed solidly Labour). As in, Centrists and liberals are still perfectly comfortable in voting Tory in line with their class interests - there are plenty of liberal tories (Ken Clarke, Gidiot Osborne) and "conservative" Labourites (Frank Fields).

I guess I was comparing it to the 905 belt in Ontario and Lower Mainland suburbs in BC and in both areas Conservative support tends to usually be not far off national numbers whereas in the London Commuter Belt, the Tories won by much bigger margins than they did nationally meaning even if they lose next time, they should still hold most.  Yes you have a few marginal ones like Thurrock and Watford while you have Slough which is solidly Labour (It's also under 50% white so I suspect amongst white British voters the Tories probably got similar numbers) but most of the others are pretty solidly Tory.  Likewise in the US I see the Commuter Belt as comparable to the Collar Counties of Chicago, Long Island and Hudson Valley in New York, and Surrounding counties of Los Angeles County (San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Orange and note Orange did vote for Clinton despite its traditional GOP strength) and those areas tend to be bellwethers although in the 80s they were staunchly GOP so perhaps maybe the fact the British Conservatives aren't as extreme or as reactionary as the GOP is part of the reason, but then in Canada the Canadian Conservatives are that much further to the right than the British Conservatives and certainly in BC, I don't think the BC Liberals are any further to the right than the British Tories if anything they are slightly more centrist.  While you are right about the GOP and to a lesser extent Canadian Conservatives playing the cultural wars, the Ontario PCs and especially the BC Liberals have stayed away from that yet don't have the lock on the suburbs the way the Tories do for the London commuter belt.  Mind you income might make sense as the Liverpool suburbs for the most part with few exceptions tend to go massively Labour as do the working class Manchester suburbs and in North America the only suburbs you see blowouts on the left are minority majority ones and that is more in the US than Canada (Essex County, New Jersey would be an example of this).

[mileslunn]

I think the big problem for Labour is they need to pick up 64 seats to win a majority and if you just look at the marginals in England and Wales they would have to win some they lost by sizeable margins.  Otherwise beating the Tories in seats is easy, getting a majority seems a lot tougher.  The one way I could see them doing it, is make big gains in Scotland and win around 40 seats there as it seems big swings are more common in Scotland than England and Wales and then pick up another 30 seats in England/Wales.

The swing (if there is one) against the incumbent government tends to be bigger in the marginals than overall. Hence the Tories only got a majority of 21 in 1992 for example as opposed to the 70ish they would have achieved on a uniform swing.

Perhaps, but it seemed demographics and vote in Brexit not whether they were marginals or not determined the swing.  If you applied a uniform swing, ridings like Morley and Outwood would have flipped back while ones like Kensington and Canterbury wouldn't even register as targets.  Likewise Hove and Brighton Kemptown saw much bigger swings than nationally when you only needed a small swing to win both.  It seems areas with a university or college, younger population, large non-white population, more university educated than average, central parts of large cities, voted heavily remain in Brexit as well as Tory rural strongholds (this was more of a dead cat bounce as the Tories are still well over 50% so Labour jumping 15% doesn't make a difference just as urban central ones where they went from 60% to 80% did them no good) were where you saw the strongest swings to Labour.  On the other hand blue collar partially rural or smaller urban, areas with high senior population, areas voted over 60% leave in Brexit generally saw favourable swings to the Tories.

Now maybe if people are in the throw the bums move out you will have like 1997 where Labour wins many traditional Tory seats (although Blair was centrist enough he could appeal to swing voters while not sure if Corbyn can do that) or perhaps like in past elections you will see Labour miss some marginals but compensate that by picking up in one's they weren't expected to.  In 2010 many marginals the Tories missed but they offset that by picking up a number of ones they weren't expected to win in so perhaps maybe that is what will happen. 

I would be interested in geographically where others think Labour would put together its majority.  My thinking is Scotland swings heavily towards them and they get around 40 seats and sweep the Scottish Lowlands.  In London they pick up a few Tory strongholds that swung heavily towards them like Chipping Barnet and maybe even Cities of London and Westminster.  Elsewhere in England they pick up another 30-40 seats pretty much all marginals and largely ones where the Tories got below 50% (with Corbyn being as left wing as he is I don't think many constituencies where the Tories got over 50% will flip even if lost by only single digits, whereas ones with strong vote splits with the Liberal Democrats I could see them flipping).

Off course I could just as easily see the Tories winning a majority next time around.  For starters it seems every re-distribution is favourable to the Tories so it used to be Labour could lose the popular vote and win the most seats whereas now it is the other way around.

[mileslunn]

Well Liberal (and Labour) strength in parts of the SW is a matter of tradition more than just previous incumbency. In the SW, outside of the urban areas, the Labour tradition has really been restricted to the coal fields of Gloucestershire - that is, Stroud and the Forest of Dean; and to some tin mining areas in Cornwall. A history of coal mining genuinely is a great proxy for Labour strength these days (Labour areas in rural parts of the North fit pretty neatly to the coal mining areas).

So for Stroud, take coal and factor in the kind of liberal metropolitan elite rat race drop outs who helped it vote remain, and remember that remain voting areas swung massively towards Labour, and isnt surprising that Stroud sticks out.

As for the commuter belt; Watford, Thurrock and Slough are demographicallt nothing like what people generally mean by commuter belt. They are much poorer than Sevenoaks or Dorking, and I can guarantee you that white people in Slough vote very differently to those in Windsor.

Put simply, the Tories are still the party of the British elite - there is just no way those people are voting Labour, you cant compare it to the Democrats in the US or Liberals in Canada.

Likewise, the outlying areas of Manchester or Liverpool arent really comparable to the London commuter belt. A more direct equivalent would be places in Cheshire like Tatton, which are still very right wing.

I wonder if it is the type of progressive party the Labour Party is as you are right in Canada the wealthy areas never go NDP which is most similar to Labour, but they do often go Liberal.  In the US you don't have an equivalent to Labour either so do you think in the UK the wealthy urban areas would be winneable by the Liberal Democrats if they were an actual viable party.  Also if the Tories became more right wing and reactionary could that change how those areas vote as it seems in the British Tories the reactionary element exists but is pretty marginalized unlike in Canada where post 2003 they are a sizeable minority or the US where they dominate the GOP.

As for the coal mining, interesting, certainly in Canada heavy mining areas due to vote left although most tend to be further north and thus remote areas that require large amount of government funding just to exist otherwise more comparable to the Northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland in terms of politics.  In the US the coal mining areas back in the 90s went heavily Democrat, but have swung quite massively GOP and Trump won a landslide in most coal counties.

Still I thought looking at exit polls unlike previous elections, age as opposed to income was the biggest determinant in voting patterns as I believe Labour only narrowly won the working class while the Tory win amongst the upper middle class was much smaller than in the past.  Likewise it appears amongst Millennials, Labour won all classes while amongst seniors the Tories won all classes and it was more people in their late 30s, 40s, and 50s where class might have been a dividing line.  Also I believe home ownership status was a big determinant as Tories won by 20 points amongst home owners but Labour won by over 20 amongst renters and not just council housing renters but even won amongst private renters.

[mileslunn]

Wow. Fantastic discussion here! I'll add my two cents/pennies here, as I'm a Canadian who now lives in the London commuter belt (Cobham):

Parochialboy's point about the elite and milesiunn's point about the surbubs are both spot on. The Tories in the UK are akin to the Liberals in Canada in that they are both the party of the establishment, consensus, and small-c conservative bourgeois values. This makes them intrinsically more appealing to the affluent and long-established (i.e. not immigrant) communities that make up most of the Home Counties near London. Meanwhile, Canadian Tories/British Labour represent a challenge to the status quo, and hence are only really considered when there's been a major scandal, and even then, their support is too thin and too poorly organized to ever win. I sometimes explain this to outsiders by saying: For middle-class Brits, voting Labour is a decision, voting Tory is a habit.

There's also the issue of constituency boundaries. The constituencies in and around London tend to be quite compact. When laid over the regional urban planning designs, it produces a map where densely packed, urban areas (think Kingston or Croydon) are 'contained' in one or two competitive ridings, while the much less dense, ex-urban/semi-rural, and ultra affluent (i.e. gated communities) areas between them get ridings of their own. We have very few ridings that bridge both zones, like, say, Ottawa-South or Aurora-Newmarket.

One last point I'll bring up: the UK Tories have been guided *far* more by their fringe (right) wing than the Canadian Liberals have by their fringe (left) wing, especially over the past 5-10 years. This may be due to the role of third parties (the NDP drifting toward the centre during the Layton/Mulcair years and the rise of UKIP on the right), but I think the entrenched Tory advantage in places like the M25 area is the more likely culprit. The UK Tories don't have to compete for centrist minded voters here, so they drift more easily to the right.

Do you think perhaps maybe BC politics where you have the BC Liberals on the right (like the Tories) and NDP on the left (like Labour Party) would be a better proxy or is Britain just more conservative than Canada in general.

[mileslunn]

None of them is a perfect analogue. Saskatoon and Manitoba don't really have a large swatch of suburban ridings that would cultivate this relationship with one party or another. BC and Australia do, but they're far more diverse and far more middle-class (as opposed to stinking rich) than most of the M25-area constituencies.

I don't think the average UK voter is any more or less conservative than the average Canadian, Australian, or even American one, or that the country as a whole is appreciably more or less conservative (I'm not convinced such categorizations aren't just partisan rhetoric dressed up as analysis). However, something that struck me from living in the UK for a while is how the existence of the monarchy/aristocracy insinuates itself into all aspects of political and social life in a way it doesn't come close to in Canada. If I had to pin the enduring conservatism of the British middle class on any one factor, it would be that.

The South and West of Winnipeg are fairly suburban and affluent so somewhat comparable.  If it's between a centrist option and conservative they often go centrist, otherwise why they went Liberal federally in 2015 and likewise NDP under Gary Doer (who was similar to Tony Blair on the political spectrum).  But in the 2011 federal election when it was NDP vs. Conservatives and in the last provincial election those two areas went solidly Conservative with the Tories generally getting in the 50s in both.  While not a perfect comparison somewhat comparable.  It's true in Britain unlike North America class plays a much bigger role in how one votes as in the US you have many wealthy who vote Democrat and many rich in Canada vote Liberal whereas in Britain very few rich vote Labour.  Likewise with the working class the Tories in Canada and GOP in the US tend to do much better amongst the working class than the British Tories do although it seems the last election maybe seeing that change as according to the exit polls Labour's win amongst class D wasn't that big and the Tory win amongst class A wasn't either.  Age not class was by far the biggest determinant in voting.  I suspect the majority of 18-30 year olds voted Labour regardless of class while I suspect the majority of over 65 voted Conservative regardless of class, its just a matter of where the tipping point is.  The nationwide average was 47 so maybe for working class the tipping point was in the 50s while for the well to do in their late 30s. 

[mileslunn]

Actually the link between deprivation and voting Labour is very clear as this chart below (which covers only England) demonstrates

Which is the one Tory in the most deprived and the one Labour in least deprived.  I am guessing university towns would be low in terms of deprivation yet still voted Labour while areas with high senior's population would probably be higher on deprivation but vote Tory.

[mileslunn]

Would Hillingdon count? That's Boris Johnson's seat and, from what I understand, pretty lockstep Tory.

I think he only won by a little over 10 points and his is also actually in London not the commuter belt although on the edge of the city.  I think if Labour won 350 seats, they would likely pick his up, but certainly at the moment where the polls are I think his seat is pretty safe.

[mileslunn]

Would Hillingdon count? That's Boris Johnson's seat and, from what I understand, pretty lockstep Tory.

I think he only won by a little over 10 points and his is also actually in London not the commuter belt although on the edge of the city.  I think if Labour won 350 seats, they would likely pick his up, but certainly at the moment where the polls are I think his seat is pretty safe.

Yea he lost a lot of support in his race this year. If i was advising the Labour party i'd be going after that seat the most.

 

No more so than other London seats.  Nationally it was +5.5 for the Tories and +9.6 for Labour while in London it was +10.9 for Labour while -1.7 for Tories so the swing was +4.4 swing to Labour nationally but in London it was +12.6 to Labour so three times as big a swing as nationally.  However whether you will get as big a swing again is questionable.  I think of Tory cabinet ministers, Amber Rudd is considered the top target and most vulnerable.

[mileslunn]

Well the swings in London had a lot to do with young people and remain voters, and Hillingdon has substantially less of those than the rest of the city. Also, the minority population there tend to be middle class Hindus, who tend to be friendly to the Tories. So it isn't the most obvious Labour target.

I would also be very hesitant to predict how London as a whole will swing before Brexit gets settled -especially as swings in London quite often contrast quite markedly to the rest of the country

If I am not mistaken I believe the Tories won the Hindu vote whereas the Sikhs and Muslims went overwhelmingly Labour and I believe Blacks also went heavily Labour.  I think Conservatives won the Jewish and Chinese vote but both are probably too small to know.  I know in Canada, the Tories won the Hindu vote in 2011, although lost it to the Liberals in 2015 while amongst Sikhs and Muslims they've always languished in third place.

True London swings differently, but I've always found except for the Eastern edge ridings like Orpington, the Tories in London tend to be more centrist than elsewhere, otherwise more pro-European, more socially liberal (I believe most London Tories voted for Gay Marriage).  That being said also being wealthier than most of the country I've found Labour tends to do better there when more centrist but maybe that is changing as Corbyn is no moderate and he did very well in London unlike say Michael Foot who did quite poorly there.

[mileslunn]

There are people who are far more knowlegeable than me, but

Stroud is on an old coal field, which tends to lead to strong Labour support. It also has a large population of bohemian types, and countercultural and hippy type people - all of which come together to give Labour a chance. Stroud also voted remain in the Brexit referedum, and those types of areas swung heavily to Labour across the board.

Interesting although they did also have a former incumbent.  I noticed in the Southwest the Liberal Democrats tended to make rural Conservative ridings competitive where they had a past incumbent such as in St Ives and North Devon but in others like Yeovil and Thornbury & Yate where they lacked an incumbent they did poorly.  I could see how Stroud would be less conservative than other rural ridings but the size of the difference seems large.  In the North you see some rural ridings going Labour, but it seems once you get south of Birmingham and Nottingham it's largely Tory and only LibDems when they do well can win in rural areas.  Labour might win a few mixed ones like Peterborough, Canterbury or Milton Keynes North (which they narrowly missed) but those types are probably over 90% urban and I suspect the rural parts went heavily Tory in those ridings.

The London commuter belt is Tory because, fundamentally, Britain, like most of Europe, has a different political structure to the US. Middle class Brits are still a strong Tory demographic, and working class voters still vote heavily Labour. So Surrey and the like are Tory as a result of being hugely wealthy. The UK does not really have the American culture style influence behind voting patterns (plenty of pundits assured us that the culture war gap would emerge this time round, but it didnt, working class areas stayed solidly Labour). As in, Centrists and liberals are still perfectly comfortable in voting Tory in line with their class interests - there are plenty of liberal tories (Ken Clarke, Gidiot Osborne) and "conservative" Labourites (Frank Fields).

I guess I was comparing it to the 905 belt in Ontario and Lower Mainland suburbs in BC and in both areas Conservative support tends to usually be not far off national numbers whereas in the London Commuter Belt, the Tories won by much bigger margins than they did nationally meaning even if they lose next time, they should still hold most.  Yes you have a few marginal ones like Thurrock and Watford while you have Slough which is solidly Labour (It's also under 50% white so I suspect amongst white British voters the Tories probably got similar numbers) but most of the others are pretty solidly Tory.  Likewise in the US I see the Commuter Belt as comparable to the Collar Counties of Chicago, Long Island and Hudson Valley in New York, and Surrounding counties of Los Angeles County (San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Orange and note Orange did vote for Clinton despite its traditional GOP strength) and those areas tend to be bellwethers although in the 80s they were staunchly GOP so perhaps maybe the fact the British Conservatives aren't as extreme or as reactionary as the GOP is part of the reason, but then in Canada the Canadian Conservatives are that much further to the right than the British Conservatives and certainly in BC, I don't think the BC Liberals are any further to the right than the British Tories if anything they are slightly more centrist.  While you are right about the GOP and to a lesser extent Canadian Conservatives playing the cultural wars, the Ontario PCs and especially the BC Liberals have stayed away from that yet don't have the lock on the suburbs the way the Tories do for the London commuter belt.  Mind you income might make sense as the Liverpool suburbs for the most part with few exceptions tend to go massively Labour as do the working class Manchester suburbs and in North America the only suburbs you see blowouts on the left are minority majority ones and that is more in the US than Canada (Essex County, New Jersey would be an example of this).

For one thing, the Home Counties of London are very "white English" - much less multicultural than North American suburbs - and "bourgeois" in outlook (i.e. overwhelmingly Tory).



British T

True although I would argue Burlington, Whitby-Oshawa, and Newmarket-Aurora are fairly white too and those all went Liberal last federal election although it's true in 2011 when Tories federally got a similar vote share to what the British Tories did in 2017 the Tories got over 50% in those ridings nonetheless its probably true if it were NDP vs. Tories which is a more apt comparison, the Tories probably would have easily held those.  In the US its true the suburbs are more racially diverse today although back in the 80s during the Reagan era places like Long Island suburbs, Collar counties of Chicago were similarly overwhelmingly white and did vote heavily Republican then.  Also the GOP is a lot more extreme than the British Tories so I expect most American suburbs if you had a battle between John Kasich as GOP and Bernie Sanders as Democrat would go heavily GOP which is probably the best comparison.  Trump vs. Clinton would be more akin to Nigel Farage vs. Vince Cable and I suspect most of the London Commuter belt would back Vince Cable in that case, but could be wrong.