Election night 2019 / aftermath II

[Alex S]

I think Erdogan might not have quite forgotten the Johnson’s piece of doggerel claiming the religiously conservative Turkish President had sex with animals.

Not pigs though.

 

[TheDecameron]

Not pigs though.

That would have started a diplomatic war and Johnson would know that. Bear in mind he has a ship of fools for a cabinet- the immature and out of his depth then Defence Secretary who told Russia to shut up and go away and who later sent a gun boat to threaten China in the South China Sea.
Eyes will be on the turmoil Britain has placed itself in and waiting for opportunities. Trump- waiting to screw concessions out of a needy Britain locked out of the world’s largest free trade zone on its door step but Putin and Xi Jinping will be looking for a more visceral and symbolic humiliation, marking Britain’s new ( lower) status in the world.

 

[droodzilla]

This article contains the best graphic I've seen of changes between 2017 and 2019:

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk...M1tXTBAYHRN84QVBJTeuKidL6rXrtuBpQFlDOh7Pmd_s0

It's worth studying in some detail because it shows the flows between the parties, broken down by 2017 GE vote and 2016 referendum vote, while also trying to take into account non-voters.

I'm not sure where the raw polling data comes from, and the assumptions made in the analysis; also it focuses on the vote share rather than seats won/lost. Still, it's a stark illustration of Labour's electoral dilemma which, ultimately, proved intractable.

 

[Tony L]

I’m sure the real broad-brush stuff is likely about right regarding Labour and Tory, but I find it highly improbable that a third of Green voters would be Brexiters, it just doesn’t fit the profile, and I’m also surprised the LDs would have even a trace-element of Brexiters, let alone the indicated percentage.

 

[droodzilla]

https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/

According to Ashcroft, 30% of LDs voted Leave in 2016. I'm sure the percentage has dropped since then but some people stick with "their party" no matter what, and not everyone sees Brexit as the most important issue. My guess is that 10-20% of current LD voters support Leave (not necessarily hard Brexit); the infographic shows 16.7% so it looks about right.

The same Ashcroft data shows 25% of Green voters supporting Leave in 2016. So 33% now does sound high and I suspect this is down to the coarse granularity of the analysis. However, it's worth remembering that many lefties fled New Labour and joined the Greens. A significant proportion of those members will be Eurosceptic in the Bennite tradition, so the idea of a Green Leave voter isn't as outlandish as it might seem, even though it's at odds with the official party line.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

OK, so moving on. There were two key factors which won it for the Tories at the recent election: Brexit and Corbyn's leadership. Neither of these will be a factor at the next (I'm hoping Brexit isn't still staggering on like a shot cowboy in a 1950s western). So Labour will be fighting an election on more normal terms, and with 'not-Corbyn' as its leader. Credibility and policies should, if things are to return to anything resembling normality, be a significant deciding factor. Also, by then in post-Brexit Britain, the Tories under Johnson must surely have bollixed things up royally. So there's lots to play for. It's not a no-brainer, by any means, but mostly Labour needs to build its 'brand' (credibility and a genuine alternative) and to not **** it up in its campaign.

 

[Tony L]

OK, so moving on. There were two key factors which won it for the Tories at the recent election: Brexit and Corbyn's leadership. Neither of these will be a factor at the next (I'm hoping Brexit isn't still staggering on like a shot cowboy in a 1950s western).

Three factors; Farage and Banks paying very serious cash to slant key Lab marginals so the Tories could take them can’t be overlooked. I can’t understand why this is being overlooked as many seats that went Tory went that way well within the Brexit “Party” voteshare, i.e. had that disrupter not been there Lab would have likely held the seat. I view it as the offshore billionaire’s equivalent of Mugabe and his goons with baseball bats. It was no less election rigging.

 

[Paul R]

I don't see that it follows that the 1000 votes gained by the Brexit Party in 2019 over the UKIP result in 2017 in Durham North would all have gone to Labour if Brexit Party had stood down. And I don't see how standing in an election can be considered vote rigging, perhaps you should be turning your ire on independent and Green candidates too. After all both the Green and Independent candidates in Durham each got more votes than the margin Pidcock lost by.

 

[Seanm]

OK, so moving on. There were two key factors which won it for the Tories at the recent election: Brexit and Corbyn's leadership. Neither of these will be a factor at the next (I'm hoping Brexit isn't still staggering on like a shot cowboy in a 1950s western). So Labour will be fighting an election on more normal terms, and with 'not-Corbyn' as its leader. Credibility and policies should, if things are to return to anything resembling normality, be a significant deciding factor. Also, by then in post-Brexit Britain, the Tories under Johnson must surely have bollixed things up royally. So there's lots to play for. It's not a no-brainer, by any means, but mostly Labour needs to build its 'brand' (credibility and a genuine alternative) and to not **** it up in its campaign.

Labour lost 2 elections on more normal terms before anyone had even heard of Corbyn. They got less of the popular vote in 2010 and 2015 than 2019. There's a trajectory that goes beyond exceptional factors like Brexit or choice of leaders, campaigning competence etc. Question is whether a change in policy direction is enough to interrupt that or whether we need radical institutional reform as a matter of extreme urgency (longer term we do, no question).