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Oryxslayer
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« Reply #275 on: May 08, 2021, 06:12:49 PM »
« edited: May 09, 2021, 08:16:54 AM by Oryxslayer »

Just to provide some numbers here, though this is better suited for the UK main thread, the Liberal-Democrats look like they will have close to a net zero councilor change after Thursday. This is of course not because the party has done exceptionally well defending their seats, but rather the party has churned through results and "realigned" to reflect the fact it now does best with posh generally southern Remainers.

Excluding some areas where the Lib-Dems gained cause they were simply one party of many gaining at the expense of a scandal tarred local govt, a clear trend emerges. he Lib-Dems lost their constituency seat in Wales, lost a list seat in Scotland, and lost 16 seats in Cornwall. There is no more Celtic fringe. The Lib-Dems are additionally down in places like Sefton, Norfolk, and Portsmouth where the party once had relevance nationally. They have gained in places Hertfordshire, Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Gloustershire, and Buckinghamshire. These places the Lib-Dems always were the opposition to the Conservatives, but the micro-realignment has allowed the party to flip Tory councilor seats, despite the Conservatives large lead nationally.

Of course, if a realignment is the be immediately beneficial, the gains should outweigh the losses...
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #276 on: May 09, 2021, 05:47:06 AM »

I think that is an.......over-simplistic reading of things. Labour going into a 2019 GE on an openly Lexit platform might have seen them lucky to get 150 seats never mind 200.



I thought this at the time, but the truly abysmal performance of the LDs under Swinson suggests most of the left-leaning Remainers would have returned to Labour. It is not as if they did well amongst right-leaning Remainers even with their pro-2nd referendum stance.

The LDs didn't do awfully under Swinson. OK, they should have done better; but they came very close in a good few seats, and overtook Labour in much of southern England. With one more percentage point nationally they would have got quite a few more seats.

Of course seats-wise they didn't do well, but that didn't much matter in a Boris landslide.

They absolutely did awfully under Swinson. They went backwards from 2017 in terms of seats and lost their leader's parliamentary representation, failed to retake their most plump Labour-held* target, lost all of the progress they made under Vince Cable, and completely collapsed in most of their Conservative-held targets (especially their former stomping grounds in the Celtic fringe). Even in metropolitan, Remainer-leaning areas, they failed to squeeze all they could out of Labour in, say, Wimbledon. When the dust settled, they had fewer realistic target seats than after 2017, and the list is probably even shorter in reality because ex-MPs like Andrew George have probably lost their appetite to contest these seats again.

*It was actually held by disgraced former Labour MP Jared O'Mara on election day, but this makes the failure to capture the seat even more embarrassing. Labour did a really good job of defending against the LibDems, and could probably have gotten away with being a bit more Lexit-y.

It probably won't stick, but they laid the foundation in many seats across the South, getting by far their best results since 2010; in some places coming close to that. Obviously they should have done better given how bad the others were. It doesn't help much to talk about Scottish seats which have a completely different dynamic.*

*I saw someone say that the loss of East Dunbartonshire showed their anti-Brexit stance backfired, which is ridiculous since they lost it to the pro-EU SNP.


When I referred to losses in the Celtic fringe, I was thinking less about Scotland and more about the southwest of England and, to a lesser extent, the Brecon/Montgomery/Ceredigion trio in Wales.

The LibDems built foundations in new places, but the end result was fewer targets where they were within 10-20% than after 2017, in addition to fewer seats held than after 2017.

From a purely FPTP perspective, it was bad. But they substantially increased their number of second places (I’m not sure on the exact numbers, but quite possibly more than doubled, maybe almost tripled), and of course increased their vote share by 5 points. Perhaps more importantly, their electoral coalition looked more cohesive than it has in a long time (i.e. affluent, educated Southern Remainers) - not great if you want to recapture the success of Charles Kennedy, but good for achieving the more reasonable goal of maintaining a modicum of medium-term relevance, and trying to clear 20 seats again.


This is a fair point, and I'm not going to move the goalposts from 2017. There are some bright spots in the 2019 results relative to them.

I maintain that the Swinson leadership was awful, even if the performance was not, because her tenure consisted of throwing away most of the gains the LDs had made under Cable and alienating even more Brexiteers. Some of that was inevitable, but the scale of the retreat over a few months was astounding. Even in traditional Tory-Lib Dem fights like Cheadle, Labour voters went back to the red team in significant - and electorally fatal - numbers.

The base was quite small by the end, and they probably couldn't have eaten much into Labour in a GE under her leadership so long as Labour had been careful with their Lexit-y rhetoric (perhaps Labour clarifying what the Corbyn deal actually meant would have helped them, as their rhetoric was really vague to begin with).


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beesley
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« Reply #277 on: May 09, 2021, 07:38:36 AM »


I maintain that the Swinson leadership was awful, even if the performance was not, because her tenure consisted of throwing away most of the gains the LDs had made under Cable and alienating even more Brexiteers. Some of that was inevitable, but the scale of the retreat over a few months was astounding. Even in traditional Tory-Lib Dem fights like Cheadle, Labour voters went back to the red team in significant - and electorally fatal - numbers.


I think it was actually far worse than that. Obviously the 2015 and 2017 GE results and the loss of many incumbents paved the way for this to happen, and things were trending that way anyway, but she basically sealed the demise of the Lib Dems in many of their traditional areas by throwing away any credibility they had in those areas. It will take them a long time to recover and it will probably require lots of local work.
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« Reply #278 on: May 09, 2021, 10:38:55 AM »

And Tracy Babin looks set for election, so pencil Batley and Spen in to your diaries. Of course, we didn't have a by election here too long ago, although the circumstances were ... very different.
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Geoffrey Howe
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« Reply #279 on: May 09, 2021, 10:52:58 AM »

And Tracy Babin looks set for election, so pencil Batley and Spen in to your diaries. Of course, we didn't have a by election here too long ago, although the circumstances were ... very different.

Ah yes Labour have a history of doing really well in by-elections here - >80% - so they'll get a landslide.

On a serious note, there is much less of a Brexit Party vote here so it shouldn't be as bad for Labour as Hartlepool.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #280 on: May 09, 2021, 10:55:42 AM »

Well that "Heavy Woollen" mob are pro-Brexit (their big cheese is ex-UKIP) though it isn't their sole motivation and raison d'etre as it was for BxP.

But the first round voting for the W Yorks region shows a decent swing to Labour since the 2019 GE.
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Blair
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« Reply #281 on: May 09, 2021, 10:57:04 AM »

Logic would be to have a AWS shortlist with someone who is local & keep anyone who has been an MP a mile away from the seat...
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #282 on: May 09, 2021, 10:59:41 AM »

Though the usual GALAXY BRAINS are likely suggesting Ed Balls already......
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beesley
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« Reply #283 on: May 09, 2021, 11:11:04 AM »

Though the usual GALAXY BRAINS are likely suggesting Ed Balls already......

There will be someone somewhere who'll suggest John Grogan, I'm sure.
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Geoffrey Howe
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« Reply #284 on: May 09, 2021, 01:49:54 PM »

Why is Sadiq so far ahead in the opinion polls for mayor? He hasn’t been a particularly good mayor in my opinion, but objectively he hasn’t done all that much. Now he has done some stuff which upsets outer London voters - for example the ULEZ expansion*. So I’m not sure why he is so far ahead in the polls. Ken Livingstone never got over 57% of the vote yet some polls have Khan >60%. Clearly Shaun Bailey isn’t a gifted campaigner, but Khan is doing very well in the first preferences.

All I can think of is that the Tories have become significantly more unpopular in London thanks to Brexit. But then Zac Goldsmith wasn’t crushed (and did very well in places like Richmond) but he was campaigning for Brexit and had a lot of issues around Islamophobia.

*Although that was sort of Mr Shapps trying to make Khan unpopular...

Well my confusion was not misplaced. I suspect people in the suburbs were angrier and more motivated to vote against a Labour mayor than they were after two terms of a Tory mayor.

I wonder whether No 10’s conspicuous absence from the campaign ended up helping Shaun Bailey.

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Lord Halifax
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« Reply #285 on: May 09, 2021, 03:33:54 PM »

So apparently Batley and Spen is 20% Asian (and I assume that means South Asian), is there any way to look up how many of those are Hindus and Muslims? I assume Muslims are more reliable Labour/anti-Tory voters than Hindus and Sikhs?

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-statistics-ethnicity/#single_constituency
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EastAnglianLefty
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« Reply #286 on: May 09, 2021, 03:41:46 PM »

So apparently Batley and Spen is 20% Asian (and I assume that means South Asian), is there any way to look up how many of those are Hindus and Muslims? I assume Muslims are more reliable Labour/anti-Tory voters than Hindus and Sikhs?

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-statistics-ethnicity/#single_constituency

You can find statistics by ward (from 2011) here: https://boundaryassistant.org/census/index.html?v=1.1

Batley has a large Muslim population and Heckmondwike has a decent number. The Spen Valley wards are 95%+ white.
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Benjamin Frank
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« Reply #287 on: May 09, 2021, 05:39:01 PM »

I maintain that the Swinson leadership was awful, even if the performance was not, because her tenure consisted of throwing away most of the gains the LDs had made under Cable and alienating even more Brexiteers. Some of that was inevitable, but the scale of the retreat over a few months was astounding. Even in traditional Tory-Lib Dem fights like Cheadle, Labour voters went back to the red team in significant - and electorally fatal - numbers.


I think it was actually far worse than that. Obviously the 2015 and 2017 GE results and the loss of many incumbents paved the way for this to happen, and things were trending that way anyway, but she basically sealed the demise of the Lib Dems in many of their traditional areas by throwing away any credibility they had in those areas. It will take them a long time to recover and it will probably require lots of local work.

I saw a calculation, it might have been on Sky TV News, the calculation might have been for just England, or it might have included Wales and Scotland as well, I can't remember,  that the local election voting, if translated to a U.K Parliamentary vote, would have been 36% Conservatives, 29% Labour, 17% Liberal Democrats and 18% other.  

To be sure, for the Liberal Democrats that is still a distant third, but it's a lot better than the 11% they received in the 2019 election!  At the local level, the Liberal Democrats seem to still have a fair deal of support.
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Benjamin Frank
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« Reply #288 on: May 09, 2021, 06:01:38 PM »

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/09/keir-starmers-labour-shadow-cabinet-reshuffle-the-winners-and-losers

Keir Starmer’s Labour shadow cabinet reshuffle: the winners and losers
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Libertas Vel Mors
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« Reply #289 on: May 09, 2021, 06:15:38 PM »

Hartlepool is an absolute tossup as to who will win

Talk about expectations management.

This seat was easily won by Corbyn even in 2019, and when allegations against the Labour candidate were already known IIRC. BXP voters, who couldn't even bring themselves to vote Tory with that party running on a "Get Brexit Done" ticket, are very unlikely to vote Tory now; in this part of the world they are by and large ex-Labour. Add to that government by-election gains being rarer than hen's teeth.

This seat by all rights should be a Labour hold, even if they have troubles at local level. I doubt it would be fatal to Starmer's leadership, but failure to hold Hartlepool when a more toxic leader managed it would seriously undermine his position. You can imagine the crowing from the nuttiest parts of Labour.

Funny.
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Oryxslayer
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« Reply #290 on: May 09, 2021, 06:31:10 PM »

Hartlepool is an absolute tossup as to who will win

Talk about expectations management.

This seat was easily won by Corbyn even in 2019, and when allegations against the Labour candidate were already known IIRC. BXP voters, who couldn't even bring themselves to vote Tory with that party running on a "Get Brexit Done" ticket, are very unlikely to vote Tory now; in this part of the world they are by and large ex-Labour. Add to that government by-election gains being rarer than hen's teeth.

This seat by all rights should be a Labour hold, even if they have troubles at local level. I doubt it would be fatal to Starmer's leadership, but failure to hold Hartlepool when a more toxic leader managed it would seriously undermine his position. You can imagine the crowing from the nuttiest parts of Labour.

Funny.

That second paragraph aged like fine wine.
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Lord Halifax
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« Reply #291 on: May 09, 2021, 11:15:38 PM »

Hartlepool is an absolute tossup as to who will win

Talk about expectations management.

This seat was easily won by Corbyn even in 2019, and when allegations against the Labour candidate were already known IIRC. BXP voters, who couldn't even bring themselves to vote Tory with that party running on a "Get Brexit Done" ticket, are very unlikely to vote Tory now; in this part of the world they are by and large ex-Labour. Add to that government by-election gains being rarer than hen's teeth.

This seat by all rights should be a Labour hold, even if they have troubles at local level. I doubt it would be fatal to Starmer's leadership, but failure to hold Hartlepool when a more toxic leader managed it would seriously undermine his position. You can imagine the crowing from the nuttiest parts of Labour.

Funny.

Not really, it was a fairly reasonable assumption at the time. The irony is that what happened was easy to "predict" if you don't know much about British politics, but quite surprising if you do (at least the size of the margin, but even the result itself). On Vote UK filled with British anoraks and generally centre-right leaning c. 70% of those voting in the poll thought it would be a Labour hold right up to the final day, including most Conservatives. The media narrative was that it would be a Tory win, but given the low quality of both political journalism and constituency polling in the UK that was hard to take entirely seriously.
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YL
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« Reply #292 on: May 10, 2021, 04:17:00 AM »

Logic would be to have a AWS shortlist with someone who is local & keep anyone who has been an MP a mile away from the seat...

Just do it properly with a reasonably long shortlist and the minimum of anything that can be seen as factional shenanigans, and a decent local candidate can probably be found.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #293 on: May 10, 2021, 08:48:27 AM »

Hartlepool is an absolute tossup as to who will win

Talk about expectations management.

This seat was easily won by Corbyn even in 2019, and when allegations against the Labour candidate were already known IIRC. BXP voters, who couldn't even bring themselves to vote Tory with that party running on a "Get Brexit Done" ticket, are very unlikely to vote Tory now; in this part of the world they are by and large ex-Labour. Add to that government by-election gains being rarer than hen's teeth.

This seat by all rights should be a Labour hold, even if they have troubles at local level. I doubt it would be fatal to Starmer's leadership, but failure to hold Hartlepool when a more toxic leader managed it would seriously undermine his position. You can imagine the crowing from the nuttiest parts of Labour.

Funny.

Not really, it was a fairly reasonable assumption at the time. The irony is that what happened was easy to "predict" if you don't know much about British politics, but quite surprising if you do (at least the size of the margin, but even the result itself). On Vote UK filled with British anoraks and generally centre-right leaning c. 70% of those voting in the poll thought it would be a Labour hold right up to the final day, including most Conservatives. The media narrative was that it would be a Tory win, but given the low quality of both political journalism and constituency polling in the UK that was hard to take entirely seriously.

Its one of those results that is "obvious" once it happens, but not before. And it drives home that Labour's election timing, candidate choice and actual campaign were all utterly disastrous.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #294 on: May 10, 2021, 08:55:18 AM »

Well, that near ten per cent for a female Labour-ish independent is the tell isn't it? In the end it is hard not to suspect that the circumstances of the by-election ended up mattering more than anticipated.

Williams though is a perfect example - like Imran Hussain - of a candidate who is a sound and reasonable choice as a General Election candidate but turns out to be really, really bad as a by-election one. It is a surprisingly common phenomenon and there should be some quiet, careful research into it.
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vileplume
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« Reply #295 on: May 10, 2021, 09:20:44 AM »

Just to provide some numbers here, though this is better suited for the UK main thread, the Liberal-Democrats look like they will have close to a net zero councilor change after Thursday. This is of course not because the party has done exceptionally well defending their seats, but rather the party has churned through results and "realigned" to reflect the fact it now does best with posh generally southern Remainers.

Excluding some areas where the Lib-Dems gained cause they were simply one party of many gaining at the expense of a scandal tarred local govt, a clear trend emerges. he Lib-Dems lost their constituency seat in Wales, lost a list seat in Scotland, and lost 16 seats in Cornwall. There is no more Celtic fringe. The Lib-Dems are additionally down in places like Sefton, Norfolk, and Portsmouth where the party once had relevance nationally. They have gained in places Hertfordshire, Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Gloustershire, and Buckinghamshire. These places the Lib-Dems always were the opposition to the Conservatives, but the micro-realignment has allowed the party to flip Tory councilor seats, despite the Conservatives large lead nationally.

Of course, if a realignment is the be immediately beneficial, the gains should outweigh the losses...

Some of this narrative his is true but it is important to take it with a very heavy pinch of salt. The Tories did very well in these Southern councils the last time they were fought back in 2017, so a reversion to the mean was always likely. Buckinghamshire for example the Lib Dems have a measly 15 seats to the Conservatives 113, that is no evidence of a realignment there whatsoever. In Gloucestershire they failed to gain 2 very Remain seats off the Tories in Cheltenham and even lost one of their own seats in the town to them. In Surrey they did make 5 net gains but it could be argued that considering how scandal plagued/incompetent the Tory administration was (and probably will continue to be) it could be argued that the results here were merely a combination of this and a natural reversion to the mean after an amazing 2017 performance. They also lost seats in Winchester, a strongly Remain district.

Where there does appear to be a very clear trend is in (southern) Cambridgeshire and parts of Oxfordshire, which is presumably because of the university effect. In both counties the Tory performance typically improves the further from the city you get, even if the area is still posh/Remainy.  I'd be surprised if South Cambridgeshire didn't go Lib Dem next time, although in Oxfordshire the Tories are helped by the fact that other than Oxford West and Abingdon (which is already Lib Dem) the area most influenced by the city is split up into multiple seats. For example Carterton and environs will likely bail the Tories out in the Witney constituency even if the areas closer to the city continue to trend Lib Dem.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #296 on: May 10, 2021, 10:43:12 AM »

In Oxfordshire at least there is also huge controversy over planning issues! These things matter in local politics.
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vileplume
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« Reply #297 on: May 10, 2021, 12:03:54 PM »

In Oxfordshire at least there is also huge controversy over planning issues! These things matter in local politics.

This too. Though there does seem to be some movement away from the Tories in the greater Oxford area, though not anywhere near to the degree that the county results would suggest.
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mileslunn
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« Reply #298 on: May 10, 2021, 02:42:10 PM »

While not sure would work seat wise, do people see Green party support holding up as depending on which poll you believe, many show Labour + Greens ahead of Tories or at least close.  Only problem is if local elections give any hints, Green support is heavily concentrated in areas Labour already strong thus I am not sure even if all Green voters went Labour would be enough, but still wondering if you will get tactical voting and many Greens uniting behind Labour much like many UKIP/Brexit party have now coalesced behind Tories.  Liberal Democrats are a centrist so I am not sure they really hurt any party.  It seems looking back to 2010 which was their last decent election, in some places their vote swung heavily Labour like university towns, but in other areas like Southwest swung mostly behind the Tories thus not sure an alliance with them will work.
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vileplume
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« Reply #299 on: May 10, 2021, 03:09:26 PM »
« Edited: May 10, 2021, 03:55:33 PM by vileplume »

While not sure would work seat wise, do people see Green party support holding up as depending on which poll you believe, many show Labour + Greens ahead of Tories or at least close.  Only problem is if local elections give any hints, Green support is heavily concentrated in areas Labour already strong thus I am not sure even if all Green voters went Labour would be enough, but still wondering if you will get tactical voting and many Greens uniting behind Labour much like many UKIP/Brexit party have now coalesced behind Tories.  Liberal Democrats are a centrist so I am not sure they really hurt any party.  It seems looking back to 2010 which was their last decent election, in some places their vote swung heavily Labour like university towns, but in other areas like Southwest swung mostly behind the Tories thus not sure an alliance with them will work.

It's unlikely it'll hold up in a General Election but if it does it'll mean Starmer has done something to really, really annoy the urban left as that's where any increased support in a general election context will primarily come from. However even in this scenario it's unlikely to translate into seats as most constituencies in the 'Muesli Belt' also have large, often ethnically diverse council estates which in general elections are near-monolithic Labour block votes. Their best bet for a second seat would be Bristol West (one of the few constituencies that genuinely adored Corbyn) and they'll be aided in this by favourable boundary changes, which due to electorate rises is likely to remove the much poorer council estate heavy wards of Easton and Lawrence Hill (I know the Greens can do well in these wards locally but in a general election context they're unmovably Labour). However, they were over 28k behind Labour last time and it would be an absolutely massive ask for them to overturn that in one election.

In local elections the Greens can do well in rural Tory areas (e.g. Suffolk) but this is usually due to them running quasi-independent campaigns, campaigning on NIMBYism or appealing to small town, localist (critics would say parochial) instincts that exist in such areas. However this will not be repeated in General elections as the Greens won't run the type of green campaign that would go down well in these areas: anti-globalisation, sceptical of immigration, protectionist/buy local, anti-development etc.
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