United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[jaichind]

It seems to me the key issue here are the size and nature of the LAB-LDEM-Green tactical voting versus CON-BXP tactical voting.  The way these tactial voting goes will determine if this is NOM or some CON majority of unknown size.   One thing to note is that due to the Brexit issue I believe LDEM would have a lot more financial resources this around versus previous elections.   

[jaichind]

Befair markets for vote share seems to imply CON at around 37%, LAB around 25% and LDEM around 20%

[jaichind]

Conservative Party restores whip to ten of the rebel MPs who were kicked out earlier.

Ken Clarke is not one of them.  Good.  One good thing about this election is he is now out for good one way or another.

[jaichind]

I assume this election is still going with the 650 seat boundaries and not the proposed 600 seat boundaries.

[jaichind]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/76e74c38-fb22-11e9-98fd-4d6c20050229

Brexit party considers pulling out of hundreds of seats to boost Tories

Not sure this helps CON that much.  Lots of BXP voter are people that will never vote CON regardless of Brexit stance.

[jaichind]

https://www.sportingindex.com/spread-betting/politics/british/group_b.6b9db4dc-d1df-4c9d-b9ab-c9a136a91f1e/uk-general-election-seats-markets

Sportingindex market medium

CON     324
LAB      206
SNP       49.5
LDEM     47.5
BXP         3.5

Which with SF not taking their seats gives CON a bare de facto majority

[jaichind]

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-boris-johnson-corbyn-would-take-uk-to-bad-places-2019-10

"Trump backs 'fantastic' Boris Johnson and says Jeremy Corbyn would take UK to 'bad places'"

Trump says this to Nigel Farage and encouraged that Nigel Farage's BXP and Johnson's CON should join forces.

[jaichind]

Nigel Farage throwing a lifeline to the remainers by announcing that they are going to stand in all constituencies.

Not 100% sure about that.  For sure BXP running everywhere will eat into CON Brexi votes but could also eat into LAB Brext voters that otherwise would never vote CON anyway.  The main problem with a de facto CON-BXP alliance is that it will trigger an even greater defection rate of CON Remain vote as well as trigger LAB-LDEM-Green tactical voting in response.

The most recent Yougov poll on a cross section of 2017 and 2016 vote is fairly instructive:

Voting intention among 2016 REMAIN voters
Lib Dem - 34%
Labour - 33%
Con - 16%
Green - 9%

Voting intention among 2016 LEAVE voters
Con - 58%
Brexit Party - 24%
Labour - 10%

LEAVE voters only
Voting intention among CON+LEAVE voters
Con - 77%
Brexit Party - 19%

Voting intention among LAB+LEAVE voters
Labour - 43%
Brexit Party - 25%
Con - 19%



REMAIN voters only
Voting intention among CON+REMAIN voters
Con - 61%
Lib Dem - 31%

Voting intention among LAB+REMAIN voters
Labour - 58%
Lib Dem - 27%
Green - 9%



There are almost no CON REMAIN vote that will defect to LAB and all such defection will go to LDEM.
The some LAB LEAVE vote will defect to CON but an even larger chunk will go to BXP.  That is the bloc of LAB LEAVE voters that will most likely never vote CON anyway and BXP running will keep those votes away from LAB.  Of course there is a bloc of CON LEAVE voters that will go to BXP but like in 2015 CON can hope for tactical voting.

[jaichind]

Workington which is in NE England Survation poll

CON  45(+3)
LAB   34(-17)
BXP   13 (new)
LDEM   3(-2)
Green.  2(new)

LDEM fall is a surprise
CON has never won this seat before

[jaichind]

Workington which is in NE England Survation poll

CON  45(+3)
LAB   34(-17)
BXP   13 (new)
LDEM   3(-2)
Green.  2(new)

LDEM fall is a surprise
CON has never won this seat before

For what it is worth Electoral Calculus model which has CON at 363 seats overall has Workington at
 
CON   34.9 (-6.8  )
LAB    32.1 (-19.0)
BXP     16.1 (New)
LDM    11.8 (+9.1)
Green   2.7 (New)

[jaichind]

https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1190916214161379328

Bu-bu-but I thought Labour was a Remain party! It's all a fake news media conspiracy to suggest they might in fact support Brexit! YOU'RE MAKING BREXIT MORE LIKELY BY NOT VOTING LABOUR!

(And no prizes for guessing whether this is going to be reported on. Better clear news space for the next time Jo Swinson forgets to say bless you after someone sneezes I suppose)

I thought the LAB position is that when then come to power they will negotiate a new deal with the EU and then have a referendum where they will campaign against the deal they just negotiated? 

[jaichind]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/lib-dems-greens-and-plaid-cymru-in-remain-pact-to-repeat-brecon-win-clrnch62m

"Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru in ‘remain pact’ to repeat Brecon win"

Looks like a LDEM-PC-Green alliance in Wales.  While I am sure this will hurt CON in a few seats as well LAB in a few as well I suspect this might trigger BXP->CON tactical voting in response.

[jaichind]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/lib-dems-greens-and-plaid-cymru-in-remain-pact-to-repeat-brecon-win-clrnch62m

"Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru in ‘remain pact’ to repeat Brecon win"

Looks like a LDEM-PC-Green alliance in Wales.  While I am sure this will hurt CON in a few seats as well LAB in a few as well I suspect this might trigger BXP->CON tactical voting in response.

Perhaps, but any such move will face the considerable headwind of both Tory and Brexit Party leaders and candidates explicitly disavowing such behaviour.

Beyond that, the unspoken premise of such a move-countermove dynamic is that Brexit is going to be the primary motivator of peoples' votes. You can make a case for why it might be, but I think the opposite case is much easier to make - and more convincing.

You could be right. I am just going off my view that attempts at identity based consolidation works like jujitsu or second mover advantage where the side that makes an open attempt at consolidating votes usually does not get as much out of it as it thinks and counter-consolidation in response tend to be stronger.  This is why I think any sort of CON-BXP deal would be disastrous for CON and that CON-BXP tactical voting work best in response to an external threat (Remainder alliance, Corbyn coming in with LDEM-SNP support, SNP holding the balance of power to trigger English nationalism tactical voting etc etc) and not any explicit attempt to reach such a deal. 

[jaichind]

Latest Yougov poll (change from same poll from a couple of days ago)

CON    39 (+3)
LAB     27 (+6)
LDEM   16 (-2)
BXP       7 (-6)
Green    4 (-2)

Leavers
CON    66  (+9)
LAB     10  (+3)
LDEM    3  (-2)
BXP     15 (-11)
Green    1 (-1)

Remainders
CON   17  (--)
LAB    41 (+9)
LDEM  28 (-6)
Green   6 (-2)

Leavers consolidating around CON and Remainders shifting to LAB but CON stronger with Remainders than LAB is with Leaves with LDEM losing ground.

Edit: fixed typo on LAB change

[jaichind]

That's the one I referred to above, Labour are up 6 points not 3.

Opps .. typo ...

[jaichind]

Yougov london poll

LAB    39
CON   29
LDEM 19
BXP      6
Green.  5

[jaichind]

Looks like Tom Watson is not running...

CON gains West Bromwich East ?

[jaichind]

https://order-order.com/2019/11/08/yougov-poll-11500-voters-puts-tories-14-ahead-labour/



Latest yougov poll with massive 11K plus respondents has a shift from LAB to LDEM

CON   36 (-)
LAB    22 (-3)
LDEM 19 (+2)
BXP   12 (+1)

[jaichind]

Its not their "latest" poll, as mentioned above most of the data is literally weeks old.

(and why are you using Staines as a source anyway?)

Ah .. thanks for pointing that out.  My mistake

[jaichind]

I am wondering why the CON want to block the LDEM from being in the debates.  I would think the CON strategy should be to lower the LAB vote no matter how and what.  Even if the LAB vote does not go CON but goes to LDEM or BXP that is fine because if the LAB vote is down and down a lot, seats will show up for the CON.

[jaichind]

YouGov Scotland poll is dire for Labour, now fourth behind the Nats Tories and LibDem. oh how the mighty have fallen

My understanding is that it was a subsample ergo it has less significance than a Yougov poll for Scotland

[jaichind]

Farage Says He Won't Contest 317 CON seats.  Not sure if this is good news for CON as a lot of BXP votes might flow to LAB.

[jaichind]

It gives credence to the line that BxP is simply a Tory party reserve squad.

I think this is where this will hurt CON.  It will most likely encourage Remain tactical voting.  Ideally BXP run dummy candidates in Remain areas so Leave voters know who to vote for and run strong candidates on LAB Leave districts to eat into the LAB Leave vote.

[jaichind]

https://www.sportingindex.com/spread-betting/politics/british/group_b.6b9db4dc-d1df-4c9d-b9ab-c9a136a91f1e/uk-general-election-seats-markets

Sporting Index market for seats saw an increase of around 15 seats for CON on the Farage/BXP news.

[jaichind]

I can see it triggering consolidation of the Remain vote toward Labour (which we're already seeing some evidence for) so let's see where things go from there.

Why do you think this? Labour, despite what Corbynites would have us believe, still don't have any credibility on Brexit. The Lib Dem polling slide after the calling of the election was only a few points, was always inevitable once a campaign began and has since stalled.

For what feels like the 400th time, Labour are not a remain party

Besides, the Lib Dems will happily use this in every election leaflet and broadcast from now until December 12th in order to bring Tory remainers over to their side, so if anything, their share of the remainer vote will go up because of it.

Fwiw, I don't think this will change much except at the margins in a few Brexity & Lab held marginals where the Lib Dems were already mostly irrelevant.

I think this entire Leave/Remain issue is more about identity than what is the technical definition of Leave and Remain. This is why Farage seems to have failed in his attack on Johnson's deal as "Not real Brexit" since very few is really that interested in that dictionary definition.  By the same token I think the LAB position which is of course very vague could end up collecting a lot of Remain voters by the same logic.