The 2019 British general election part 2-Greens, Liberal Democrats, Brexit Party and assorted others
Due to the unfair and disproportionate first past the post system Britain uses for parliamentary elections, smaller parties get squeezed out of seats in most areas. However the Remain/Leave issue as well as the climate crisis issue caused substantial increases in support for smaller parties.
Given their excellent performance in May and the climate crisis becoming more and more prominent, the Green Party should have achieved a record high result at this election. Caroline Lucas achieved a record majority of 19,940 (34.6%) in Brighton Pavilion. As it turns out, it was only the Greens' second best ever election result despite benefitting from the Liberal Democrats standing down for them in as many as 10 constituencies (Plaid Cymru also stood down for them in the Vale of Glamorgan). They also did not win any extra seats in the House of Commons although they did finish a good second in Bristol West and Dulwich & West Norwood. Despite moderate Labour voters rejecting Jeremy Corbyn everywhere the Green Party did not benefit from this as well as they should have in "Unite to Remain" seats; most notably in the Isle of Wight. Vix Lowthion experienced a 2.1% vote share decrease whilst Labour's vote share surprisingly increased by 1.3% in the Isle of Wight, which has never had a Labour MP. This decrease is likely attributable to the fact that Vix's former election agent, Jean Bartrum, announced her support for Labour on the Isle of Wight two days before polling day. By contrast, every other Green candidate who benefitted from the Unite to Remain alliance received more votes than the combined Liberal Democrat and Green vote shares obtained in their respective constituencies in 2017, in addition to saving their deposit. The Green Party also finished ahead of the Liberal Democrats in Sheffield Central, Hackney North & Stoke Newington (the Liberal Democrat candidate there had been suspended during the campaign over offensive Tweets), Knowsley, Liverpool Riverside, Liverpool Walton, and Waveney, and saved 31 deposits. Only six of their saved deposits were in Greater London, though, and of the 20 saved Green deposits outside constituencies involved in the Unite to Remain alliance and the Speaker's seat of Chorley, 12 were in safe, largely rural Conservative seats, which is line with the fact that of the Green gains of council seats in May 2019, there were nearly quadruple as many Green gains from Conservative as Green gains from Labour. The Greens have shown their high potential in the countryside, which will suffer more from the effects of global warming than the suburbs.
The Liberal Democrats were widely expected to make sweeping gains on the back of a pro-Remain surge, but in fact they made a net loss of one seat due to Jo Swinson's poor campaign and the unpopularity of their initial "Revoke Article 50" pledge, which they retreated from in the final weeks of the campaign. In fact, Jo Swinson became the first leader of a major British political party to lose her own seat since Archibald Sinclair lost Caithness & Sutherland in 1945 (Jo Swinson's seat, incidentally, was also a Scottish constituency, namely East Dunbartonshire) and did so to the SNP by 149 votes. When she first won it in 2005 the SNP polled only 5.8%. The only three seats the Liberal Democrats gained were North East Fife, which they missed by only 2 votes in 2017, Richmond Park, and St Albans. Aside from East Dunbartonshire they also lost Carshalton & Wallington (their longest-held seat), Eastbourne (where Stephen Lloyd temporarily resigned the whip over the Liberal Democrats' hard Remain stance), and on a 17.5% swing,North Norfolk, meaning that there are now no Liberal Democrat-held seats in Britain which voted Leave at the EU referendum. Strong pro-Europe campaigns failed to help them win favourable seats like Cheltenham, Esher & Walton, Guildford (despite the former Conservative MP Anne Milton standing as an Independent), Sheffield Hallam (in spite of the troubles Labour ran into over Jared O'Mara), South Cambridgeshire, Winchester or Wokingham, even when they were part of the Unite to Remain alliance, but they played a part in ensuring Tim Farron held Westmoreland & Lonsdale. None of the Labour or Conservative MPs who defected to the Liberal Democrats held their seat, with Chuka Umunna coming closest in the Cities of London & Westminster where he reduced the Conservative vote to 39.9%, the lowest Conservative vote ever recorded in the Cities of London & Westminster. Furthermore they actually suffered serious setbacks in many of the seats they lost in 2015 or 2017 they tried to regain, finishing a bad third in Leeds North West and losing nearly half their 2017 vote in Southport, turning it into a Con-Lab marginal, and they lost their only by-election win, Brecon & Radnorshire, by as many as 7,131 votes. The Liberal Democrats' main base is now almost entirely confined to affluent towns, small cathedral cities, and affluent suburbs of southwest London, even though the majority of their candidates increased their votes by small amounts and even though they lost far fewer deposits than in either 2015 (341) or 2017 (375). The old "Celtic fringe" Liberal tradition by contrast has almost disappeared.
The Brexit Party, who withdrew from all Conservative-held constituencies and also did not stand in eight Labour-held seats, certainly impacted this election even though only in both Barnsley seats (Central and East) did they come close to winning a seat. The majority of Brexit candidates in fact lost their deposits, due to the Conservatives' "get Brexit done" message resonating with pro-Brexit voters as well as tactical voting by many of them to defeat Labour. A notable example is Peterborough, a Conservative gain from Labour where the Brexit Party candidate who only narrowly missed out (by 631 votes) on becoming an MP in the June 2019 by-election, Mike Greene, lost his deposit with just 4.4% of the vote. Many of the Conservative gains from Labour on the back of the "get Brexit done" message also saw lost Brexit Party deposits, and in some cases they received fewer votes than the UKIP candidates in 2017 did. Arguably they may have prevented some Conservative gains, one example being Bedford which Labour held by only 145 votes. With Brexit now clearly going to happen they will soon disappear.
Independents did very well in this election by British standards, although this year a record number of MPs who had either left their former parties, or had been barred from standing under their banner, stood as Independents. None of them succeeded, with ex-Conservatives Dominic Grieve (supported by the Liberal Democrats) and David Gauke coming closest with 29% and 26% of the vote respectively. Chris Williamson by contrast lost his deposit and finished last in Derby North with just 635 votes (1.4%). Two Independent candidates, ex-Labour MP Ivan Lewis and former Labour candidate Sophie Cook, withdrew from the campaign before polling day; in Ivan Lewis' case to endorse the Conservatives who gained Bury South by 402 votes (he polled 1,366), whereas Sophie Cook withdrew after receiving harassment and online abuse during the campaign (East Worthing & Shoreham was a key marginal Labour had to win to become the largest party). The three Change UK MPs who stood for re-election failed badly; Anna Soubry polled 8.5% in Broxtowe, Mike Gapes polled 7.3% in Ilford South, and Chris Leslie polled 3.6% in Nottingham East, finishing fourth and losing his deposit to boot; the other two finished a bad third. The Independents who came closest to winning a seat were in fact Claire Wright in East Devon (40.8%) and Jason Zadrozny in Ashfield (27.9%) where he pushed Labour into third place; Ashfield was also one of the few Conservative gains where the Conservative vote actually fell (by 2.4%). The majority of Independents who crossed the deposit-retention threshold of 5% were councillors and in some cases (notably Anthony High in Middlesbrough who polled 13.6%) they blunted the Conservative advance. However, as ever, there were many independents who polled poorly (Matthew Dillworth for example, the independent candidate in Stoke-on-Trent North, where I stood as the Green Party candidate, polled just 322 votes), and the wooden spoon of this election was picked up by an Independent, William Tobin, in Boris Johnson's seat of Uxbridge & Ruislip South. He polled just 5 votes, lower even than Bobby "Give Me Back Elmo" Smith's 8 votes in the same constituency. In fact five of the lowest 10 vote totals in Britain (5, 8, 22, 23 and 44) were all polled by independents standing in Uxbridge & Ruislip South! (The other five bottom 10 vote totals in Britain this year were 28, 28, 30, 37 and 43 respectively)
Apart from Jason Zadrozny the only other minor party candidates to save their deposit were the Heavy Woollen Independents in Batley & Spen (12.2%, enough to thwart a Conservative gain) and Frank Field's Birkenhead Social Justice Party in Birkenhead (17.2% and 2nd place) with all 41 UKIP candidates losing their deposits; several of them even finished behind the Monster Raving Loony Party, for example Nigel Furness who polled 177 votes in Brighton Pavillion, in stark contrast to saving his deposit as an Independent Conservative in Hove back in 1992. The Yorkshire Party suffered a setback in some constituencies for the first time, losing half their 2017 vote share in Richmond (Yorks) for example, although they were the only minor party in this election to have an average candidate vote exceeding 1000. The splinter Liberals failed to make any impact, even in Cornwall, and their leader Steve Radford saw his vote share decline yet again to 4.2%, and he finished 4th in Liverpool West Derby where he had finished 2nd in 1997 and 2001. No continuity SDP candidate got even 1% apiece and nor did any candidate of the Christian Peoples' Alliance. The two small pro-Remain parties, Renew (most of their candidates withdrew and supported the Liberal Democrats) and Advance Together, polled derisory votes, especially Advance. Three candidates from parties on the hardline socialist fringe, the Socialist Equality Party and the Workers' Revolutionary Party, finished in the bottom 10 vote totals at this election.
Coming up in part 3-Scotland and Wales.
Given their excellent performance in May and the climate crisis becoming more and more prominent, the Green Party should have achieved a record high result at this election. Caroline Lucas achieved a record majority of 19,940 (34.6%) in Brighton Pavilion. As it turns out, it was only the Greens' second best ever election result despite benefitting from the Liberal Democrats standing down for them in as many as 10 constituencies (Plaid Cymru also stood down for them in the Vale of Glamorgan). They also did not win any extra seats in the House of Commons although they did finish a good second in Bristol West and Dulwich & West Norwood. Despite moderate Labour voters rejecting Jeremy Corbyn everywhere the Green Party did not benefit from this as well as they should have in "Unite to Remain" seats; most notably in the Isle of Wight. Vix Lowthion experienced a 2.1% vote share decrease whilst Labour's vote share surprisingly increased by 1.3% in the Isle of Wight, which has never had a Labour MP. This decrease is likely attributable to the fact that Vix's former election agent, Jean Bartrum, announced her support for Labour on the Isle of Wight two days before polling day. By contrast, every other Green candidate who benefitted from the Unite to Remain alliance received more votes than the combined Liberal Democrat and Green vote shares obtained in their respective constituencies in 2017, in addition to saving their deposit. The Green Party also finished ahead of the Liberal Democrats in Sheffield Central, Hackney North & Stoke Newington (the Liberal Democrat candidate there had been suspended during the campaign over offensive Tweets), Knowsley, Liverpool Riverside, Liverpool Walton, and Waveney, and saved 31 deposits. Only six of their saved deposits were in Greater London, though, and of the 20 saved Green deposits outside constituencies involved in the Unite to Remain alliance and the Speaker's seat of Chorley, 12 were in safe, largely rural Conservative seats, which is line with the fact that of the Green gains of council seats in May 2019, there were nearly quadruple as many Green gains from Conservative as Green gains from Labour. The Greens have shown their high potential in the countryside, which will suffer more from the effects of global warming than the suburbs.
The Liberal Democrats were widely expected to make sweeping gains on the back of a pro-Remain surge, but in fact they made a net loss of one seat due to Jo Swinson's poor campaign and the unpopularity of their initial "Revoke Article 50" pledge, which they retreated from in the final weeks of the campaign. In fact, Jo Swinson became the first leader of a major British political party to lose her own seat since Archibald Sinclair lost Caithness & Sutherland in 1945 (Jo Swinson's seat, incidentally, was also a Scottish constituency, namely East Dunbartonshire) and did so to the SNP by 149 votes. When she first won it in 2005 the SNP polled only 5.8%. The only three seats the Liberal Democrats gained were North East Fife, which they missed by only 2 votes in 2017, Richmond Park, and St Albans. Aside from East Dunbartonshire they also lost Carshalton & Wallington (their longest-held seat), Eastbourne (where Stephen Lloyd temporarily resigned the whip over the Liberal Democrats' hard Remain stance), and on a 17.5% swing,North Norfolk, meaning that there are now no Liberal Democrat-held seats in Britain which voted Leave at the EU referendum. Strong pro-Europe campaigns failed to help them win favourable seats like Cheltenham, Esher & Walton, Guildford (despite the former Conservative MP Anne Milton standing as an Independent), Sheffield Hallam (in spite of the troubles Labour ran into over Jared O'Mara), South Cambridgeshire, Winchester or Wokingham, even when they were part of the Unite to Remain alliance, but they played a part in ensuring Tim Farron held Westmoreland & Lonsdale. None of the Labour or Conservative MPs who defected to the Liberal Democrats held their seat, with Chuka Umunna coming closest in the Cities of London & Westminster where he reduced the Conservative vote to 39.9%, the lowest Conservative vote ever recorded in the Cities of London & Westminster. Furthermore they actually suffered serious setbacks in many of the seats they lost in 2015 or 2017 they tried to regain, finishing a bad third in Leeds North West and losing nearly half their 2017 vote in Southport, turning it into a Con-Lab marginal, and they lost their only by-election win, Brecon & Radnorshire, by as many as 7,131 votes. The Liberal Democrats' main base is now almost entirely confined to affluent towns, small cathedral cities, and affluent suburbs of southwest London, even though the majority of their candidates increased their votes by small amounts and even though they lost far fewer deposits than in either 2015 (341) or 2017 (375). The old "Celtic fringe" Liberal tradition by contrast has almost disappeared.
The Brexit Party, who withdrew from all Conservative-held constituencies and also did not stand in eight Labour-held seats, certainly impacted this election even though only in both Barnsley seats (Central and East) did they come close to winning a seat. The majority of Brexit candidates in fact lost their deposits, due to the Conservatives' "get Brexit done" message resonating with pro-Brexit voters as well as tactical voting by many of them to defeat Labour. A notable example is Peterborough, a Conservative gain from Labour where the Brexit Party candidate who only narrowly missed out (by 631 votes) on becoming an MP in the June 2019 by-election, Mike Greene, lost his deposit with just 4.4% of the vote. Many of the Conservative gains from Labour on the back of the "get Brexit done" message also saw lost Brexit Party deposits, and in some cases they received fewer votes than the UKIP candidates in 2017 did. Arguably they may have prevented some Conservative gains, one example being Bedford which Labour held by only 145 votes. With Brexit now clearly going to happen they will soon disappear.
Independents did very well in this election by British standards, although this year a record number of MPs who had either left their former parties, or had been barred from standing under their banner, stood as Independents. None of them succeeded, with ex-Conservatives Dominic Grieve (supported by the Liberal Democrats) and David Gauke coming closest with 29% and 26% of the vote respectively. Chris Williamson by contrast lost his deposit and finished last in Derby North with just 635 votes (1.4%). Two Independent candidates, ex-Labour MP Ivan Lewis and former Labour candidate Sophie Cook, withdrew from the campaign before polling day; in Ivan Lewis' case to endorse the Conservatives who gained Bury South by 402 votes (he polled 1,366), whereas Sophie Cook withdrew after receiving harassment and online abuse during the campaign (East Worthing & Shoreham was a key marginal Labour had to win to become the largest party). The three Change UK MPs who stood for re-election failed badly; Anna Soubry polled 8.5% in Broxtowe, Mike Gapes polled 7.3% in Ilford South, and Chris Leslie polled 3.6% in Nottingham East, finishing fourth and losing his deposit to boot; the other two finished a bad third. The Independents who came closest to winning a seat were in fact Claire Wright in East Devon (40.8%) and Jason Zadrozny in Ashfield (27.9%) where he pushed Labour into third place; Ashfield was also one of the few Conservative gains where the Conservative vote actually fell (by 2.4%). The majority of Independents who crossed the deposit-retention threshold of 5% were councillors and in some cases (notably Anthony High in Middlesbrough who polled 13.6%) they blunted the Conservative advance. However, as ever, there were many independents who polled poorly (Matthew Dillworth for example, the independent candidate in Stoke-on-Trent North, where I stood as the Green Party candidate, polled just 322 votes), and the wooden spoon of this election was picked up by an Independent, William Tobin, in Boris Johnson's seat of Uxbridge & Ruislip South. He polled just 5 votes, lower even than Bobby "Give Me Back Elmo" Smith's 8 votes in the same constituency. In fact five of the lowest 10 vote totals in Britain (5, 8, 22, 23 and 44) were all polled by independents standing in Uxbridge & Ruislip South! (The other five bottom 10 vote totals in Britain this year were 28, 28, 30, 37 and 43 respectively)
Apart from Jason Zadrozny the only other minor party candidates to save their deposit were the Heavy Woollen Independents in Batley & Spen (12.2%, enough to thwart a Conservative gain) and Frank Field's Birkenhead Social Justice Party in Birkenhead (17.2% and 2nd place) with all 41 UKIP candidates losing their deposits; several of them even finished behind the Monster Raving Loony Party, for example Nigel Furness who polled 177 votes in Brighton Pavillion, in stark contrast to saving his deposit as an Independent Conservative in Hove back in 1992. The Yorkshire Party suffered a setback in some constituencies for the first time, losing half their 2017 vote share in Richmond (Yorks) for example, although they were the only minor party in this election to have an average candidate vote exceeding 1000. The splinter Liberals failed to make any impact, even in Cornwall, and their leader Steve Radford saw his vote share decline yet again to 4.2%, and he finished 4th in Liverpool West Derby where he had finished 2nd in 1997 and 2001. No continuity SDP candidate got even 1% apiece and nor did any candidate of the Christian Peoples' Alliance. The two small pro-Remain parties, Renew (most of their candidates withdrew and supported the Liberal Democrats) and Advance Together, polled derisory votes, especially Advance. Three candidates from parties on the hardline socialist fringe, the Socialist Equality Party and the Workers' Revolutionary Party, finished in the bottom 10 vote totals at this election.
Coming up in part 3-Scotland and Wales.
Apparently the Lib Dems ran a dirty campaign in Leeds North West and there are questions about whether they broke electoral law in regard to spending limits. Constituents were inundated with about a dozen leaflets just from the Lib Dems.
ReplyDeleteIt clearly backfired-the Liberal Democrat vote in Leeds North West dropped by as much as 15.9%, whereas the Labour MP Alex Sobel managed one of less than 30 Labour vote share increases in the country (4.6%; this also happened in Portsmouth South where the Conservative vote also decreased).
ReplyDeleteI heard that St Ives received more than double that number of leaflets from the Liberal Democrats, yet Andrew George also failed quite badly to retake his old seat (by 4,284 votes!).
At the start of the campaign, the Lib Dems were considered a real threat to Alex Sobel by the local media, and at one point looked like they might snatch it back from Labour. There was an audible gasp in the hall when the results were declared.
ReplyDelete