Westministenders: The One Where Everyone is an Election Expert For 3 Days

[RedToothBrush]

The Vote has been cast.

The PM has quit. SHOCK!

We now face The Big Wait.

Waiting for the results. Waiting for the new leader. Waiting for a new direction.

Turnout looks likely to be up overall compared to 2014. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing isn't clear.

At this stage realistically the only definite thing that I think you can actually speculate is the LDs have done very well indeed. Turnout is up in all traditional LD areas and remain areas in general. Though some LDs are getting a little carried away.

Does this mean that the Brexit Party will do badly? No. Its merely a reflection of demographic polarisation. And it may indeed help the Brexit Party ironically. It does suggest that Labour hasn't done well in the north (difference with 2014 turnouts worst in Labour areas) and there are hints that the Cons have done badly (Lincolnshire turnout for the locals was lower than for the EU elections). Something is happening in Wales. But no one seems to really understand what. Its gone 'rogue'!

Plus there are far more leave areas than remain ones. The increases in turnout possibly aren't enough to make a significant dent on the Brexit Party lead.

Not much of an increase in turnout in places like Derby, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Basildon, Leigh - which all have high leave figures suggest that the Brexit Party are not motivated those they persuaded to the polls for the first time in 2016 for the Ref to vote. Instead it means they can only increase their vote share with a further collapse in the Lab / Con vote from 2014. The question with this is how close were UKIP to the ceiling vote? If you didn't go with UKIP in 2014 would the ref change that? Does this mark it harder for them to hit close to 38% vote share? Argueably yes - but don't get too excited yet either. It doesn't mean they won't do very well, if there is a Lab/Con vote collaspe like the locals. I still would not be surprised by a mid-thirties result.

Psychologically the popular vote matters. This might be important for the future. The vote of those extra referedum voters hasn't been motivated by another protest vote under Farage. Who is going to try and court them? This affects the direction of all the parties.

The real issue is how the seats split down. With the vote fragmented between the LDs, Greens, Plaid and SNP the ranking is against them. And works for the Brexit Party.

Meanwhile Boris Johnson has vowed to crash the UK out the EU without a deal.... what internal numbers is he aware of???

Results due after 10pm Sunday.

Looking at the EP diagram, almost feel sorry for THE Eurofedreralist.
Could be worse I suppose, they could be next to the Nazi corner.
In a democracy it is healthy to have some opposing views as long as everyone is prepared to debate in a constructive manner.
For all his terrible ideas, Hitler had it 'right' by having good food, exercise and breastfeeding on his manifesto.

Even if the Remain parties swept the board at the EU elections, it would make no difference to the deluded majority of Tory MPs and party members

Britain Electss@britainelects*

The new Prime Minister should...

Call an early General Election: 46%
Serve until 2022: 34%

via @YouGov, 24 May

A couple of North West areas are in which I haven't mentioned

Rossendale - 29.5% -4.2%
Chorley - 30.09% -8.11%
Barrow-in-Furness - 26.49% +3.79%
Rochdale - 30% -2.4%

Rossendale Council - 4 indys, 13 cons, 19 labs
Chorley - a Council with a website so awful I can't find the council makeup except that Labour control it.
Barrow - 24 lab, 12 con
Rochdale Council - 47 Labour, 9 Conservative and 4 Liberal Democrat

Barrow makes me particularly nervous if turnout is up. Especially since it had a starting point of 22% in 2014.

All areas are not so well off. Leave leaning.

Stockport, Trafford, Manchester, Sefton, Liverpool, Warrington and Cheshire East are going to make for interesting reading.

leclerc Farage opposed EU laws protecting breast-feeding in public, but supports smoking and boozing

Nah, I think Nige really wants bitty!

vimeo.com/115629263

Farage also voted against applying tariffs and quotas to cheap Chinese imports of steel as he didn’t believe the EU should have this power over us. It is the same as that MP Chope is it who voted against the bill preventing upskirting because he didn’t believe in private members bills. Putting threir own ‘principles’ ahead of what is good for the people they represent.

There must be so many examples where him failing to do his job as an MEP, by taking the role seriously that has caused harm to the people of the UK. But still no one in the media properly challenging him on it.

Barrow makes me particularly nervous if turnout is up. Especially since it had a starting point of 22% in 2014.

95 year old MIL hails from that area. She hasn't lived there for years but most relatives are still there. She voted Remain. They voted Leave. She thinks they are stupid.

They will find out too - the work that is there - British Aerospace and the Shipyards now offer skilled well paid work, unlike the old days. They will miss it when its gone.

Louise Farage and bitty

Out of interest what are your thoughts on Rory Stewart as a potential leader maybe not this time but in the future?

Tower hamlets is an area with a colour local voting history.

The area was the first place the bnp got a seat.

But since then things have changed a lot.

It was a very solid labour area. The the bangelishi community who are make up 33% of the community and are highly political aware got involved in local politics.

Tower Hamlets first were formed and won 18 seats to Labour's 22 in 2014 (cons had the other 5).

But in 2015 there was a big scandal with their leader Rahman who got done for electoral fraud and gave Eric Pickles an excuse to say we need to introduce voter ID. Rahman formed Aspire from the ashes of Tower Hamlets First, but got trounced in 2018. Other Tower Hamlets First people formed the People's Alliance of Tower Hamlets.

It's currently 42 Lab, 2 con and 1 path (this seat won in a by-election this year).

The local bangelishi community still has a lot of influence on how people vote by all accounts and the local by-election this year suggests they aren't happy with Labour.

I'm sure there will be lots said about Tower Hamlets along the lines of fraud and controlling how people vote by community elders.

It's not an area I'd look to for trends whichever way you view it.

It has too many micro political issues going on.

Peregrina like a lot of things as the song goes “you don’t know what you have got ‘til it’s gone”.

Number Cruncher Politics Uk @ncpoliticsuk
#EP2019 UK Turnout thread: we now have figures from around 150 councils, on average showing an increase of just over 2 points from 2014. We so far have very little from some areas, but the pattern strongly suggests a national figure in the high 30s (current best estimate: 38%)

As others have noted, turnout seems to be increasing more in areas that voted Remain in 2016. This charts shows the average turnout increase we have so far in by the strength of the Remain vote in that area (note: these deciles are not adjusted for electorate size)

With other countries Exit polls being published - one more lie that 'the EU won't allow us to do .....' nailed.

I could see Rory Stewart maybe making it to the last two, but the membership are so batshit that they would go for Johnson. However, I doubt whether Johnson would last long - he's too lazy for a start. We might then see Rory Stewart as a PM who brings the party to its senses.

It would be even better of course, if Johnson did become PM, immediately called a GE, to take advantage of the honeymoon period that new PMs get and promptly lost his seat.

But what about by party support in each area? @MattSingh_ spotted that some of the strongest increases seem to be in areas where the Greens did best in 2014. That doesn't necessarily mean it's their voters showing up in numbers now but clearly a good sign from their perspective

A similar pattern is in evidence for strong Lib Dem areas – the more votes the Lib Dems took in 2014, the more turnout is up at #EP2019

The picture for Labour areas is more nuanced – turnout is up less in stronger Labour areas, but that masks a sharper divide between Labour's new heartlands, where turnout is solid, and its traditional bastions where in several cases turnout is down on 2014

Red makes me feel a little better not sure how BXP would go down in that area.

Unless the BNP vote has sufficiently mellowed I guess.

I might have said it here or maybe it was on a facebook - if Farage got pushed into second in the South East it would be a big dent to his pride.

The suggestions for the SW seemed strange too, with an existing and respected Green MEP in Molly Scott Cato confused

The suggestion for the SW was to vote Green.

Will Boris be able to run away this time?

The pattern isn't clear with respect to 2014 Conservative strength in each area – a slight (though weak) positive correlation between Tory strength last time and turnout change – but they may, of course be voting for the Brexit Party or Lib Dems...

Turnout is weakest in the areas where UKIP was strongest in 2014. Most of UKIP's 2014 voters will have voted for someone else this time, but this may be some less good news for the Brexit Party (though to be clear, this does NOT mean that they won't win)

The usual caveat applies to this analysis – it only shows WHERE people are showing up, not WHO is showing up. It is a blunt tool for trying to infer anything about the latter – beware the ecological fallacy
Wikipedia ecological fallacy

However if we combine 2014 turnout, 2014 party support, referendum result and nation, we get a pretty strong fit (R2=0.83)^

In short, it's mainly the 'usual people' who have voted. LD and Greens have almost certainly done well, Labour is beset by problems with staying home and usual con voters may have gone one of three ways but did show up (con, ld or Brexit).

The sign that might be positive is weakness in the UKIP vote - it suggests success for Brexit party isn't going to come from holding that vote but attracting support from con voters and just how many lab voters stayed away.

Which is pretty much what I've said.

Hard to see the Tory party doing well at next election whichever

The choice is between Johnson and gambling on getting Brexit party support but they can't win enough for a majority that way. Total implosion probably lies that way - taking the country with it. Or accept a long time in the wilderness and rebuilding with a sensible leader. Which there isn't a cat in hells chance they'll go for because they are Tories...

Results won't arrive until after Sunday 10 pm and at least NI, parts of Scotland not until Monday pm

@red I read that counting will be done earlier, i.e. not just starting tomorrow at 10 pm
Do you know if this is correct and if so, when - Friday / Saturday / Sunday ?

Littlespaces - iirc, not all the tactical voting sites. I remember people on here expressing confusion. But they may have changed their advice closer to the vote (a bit late if people have postal voted).

The very fact that the tactical voting sites weren't giving consistent advice is concerning as that in itself could have split the Remain vote.

Red interesting about Lib Dem and Green vote I am in the West Mids area so strong Brexit presence 2014 Green and Lib Dem vote was 70k Ukip Tory and Labour all 400k plus so how the Labour vote holds up will be key. The seven remainer votes mixture of green and Libs are all new voters so this must be a nightmare to predict.

So I guess a huge swing to BXP could mean a lot of ‘wasted’ votes in terms of seats gains if both Greens and Lib Dem’s do well and Labour hold up. Still a huge ask though.

Since a substantial chunk of voters will always vote for a rightwing party, if they abandon the Tories, that would mean the Faragists would replace them
Unless people like Grieve can v quickly build a right of centre party - unlikely seeing the problems ChUK have

It is a huge task to build a new party from scratch, with policies on the full range of issues affecting the country
and also if you want to have actual members - not just fee paying supporters - rather than be a one-man ego trip

When I say remainer votes I mean the seven people I happen to know of. I hope there will be more than seven remain votes in the whole of the West Mids.