In one of the last days of campaigning in Honiton last week, a Liberal Democrat collector was faced with a dilemma as he fought for every vote.
“I saw this house and there was a huge work poster on the outside railings. I was thinking ‘me or not?’ If I try, she’ll just say, “Don’t you see? Can’t read? “
He called anyway and a woman answered. “Yes, I will vote for Lib Dem,” he told her quickly. Slightly surprised at how easy this was proving to be, the worker wondered if he had heard correctly. “He told me yes, he was a Labor voter, but he couldn’t get Liz Pole [the Labour candidate] above the line, then the best thing for her and her husband was to vote for Lib Dem. “
The collector, an experienced hand with many by-elections in his belt, then crossed the road and knocked on another front door. “A lady responded and said she was voting Labor. So I pointed to the big Labor sign on the other side of the road and said, Do you know the lady in front?
In fact, he did. In fact, the Lib Dem convert was his best friend. So the collector asked her if she would like to chat with her friend about electoral tactics, which she agreed to do. He left hoping to have gotten another crucial vote.
Although the Lib Dems had by no means been sure to take Tiverton and Honiton a week or so before election day, half an hour before the polls closed at 9.30pm last Thursday, things seemed quite optimistic.
As Devon constituency polling stations prepared to close, former leader Tim Farron was still out with a team, chasing people who had said they would vote for Lib Dem, in case it was reduced to a difference of one. or two. “Then, I felt the data was pretty good, I have to say,” said a party worker who was with Farron. “The Labor vote went down a lot and it wasn’t because all those Labor members had stayed home. Much of it had to be tactical voting. “
What happened in both Tiverton and Honiton, where the Liberal Democrats revoked a Conservative majority of more than 24,000 to occupy a normally fully secure Conservative seat with the help of Labor voters, and Wakefield, where Labor recaptured a stronghold traditional of assisted conservatives. by the Lib Dem votes, he was part of the anti-conservative “clamp movement” that causes fear in the heart of the Conservative party.
Those who wanted to kick Boris Johnson and the Conservatives seemed to have found the best way to do it on their own. No pacts, no agreements: just common sense. What terrifies the Conservatives and the Conservative press is that if this kind of tactical voting is achieved in the next general election, then the Conservative majority of 80 in 2019 will be eliminated.
Labor leader Keir Starmer in Wakefield last week, a “red wall” seat that Labor reclaimed with the help of Lib Dem voters. Photography: Ian Forsyth / Getty Images
YouGov’s analysis found that there were 44 Conservative seats where the combined vote of Labor and Liberals in the 2019 elections was higher than the total of Conservatives. Thus, even if there were no conservative defectors, the majority of Boris Johnson would disappear if the maximum tactical vote occurred.
Former YouGov chairman Peter Kellner, writing to the Guardian on Saturday, said: “The dramatic results in Wakefield, and Tiverton and Honiton, are certainly nearing the disruptive end of the Richter scale. The reason is not just the strong decline of Conservative support, but the fierce way in which the tactical vote increased the misery of the Conservatives.This makes it more likely that the party will lose power in the next election, even if the change in Wakefield was not enough. to raise Labor hopes for a clear majority in the House of Commons. “
While tactical voting played an important role in Labor’s blistering victory in 1997, it has more recently become obsolete. Labor supporters have been reluctant to support the Lib Dems after joining a coalition in support of austerity under Nick Clegg from 2010 to 2015. And more recently, the Lib Dems have wanted nothing to do with a Labor party associated with its former leader Jeremy. Corbyn.
Now, however, Keir Starmer and Lib Dem leader Ed Davey are less polarizing figures, and their parties less repellent to each other.
Conservatives and the right-wing press, seeing the threat, are trying to demonize this phenomenon as something that is not. Both are trying to portray Labor and the Liberal Democrats as co-conspirators in a plot or pact that would see them form a coalition government, backed by the SNP; the future of the union would be at stake, with a second referendum on Scottish independence the price. On Saturday, the headline of the cover of the Daily Mail quoted Sajid Javid, the health secretary, as demanding to know “the truth about [an] anti-Tory pacts ”.
In fact, there is no need for a pact, nor an agreement with the SNP. Common sense on the part of voters might be enough.
“The Tiverton and Honiton by-elections showed that people are tired of this endless chaos and confusion and are crying out for proper leadership,” Davey said. “Liberal Democrats have drawn up a clear plan to move the UK. We would tax the record profits of banks, freeze train fares and reduce fuel taxes in rural areas to put money back in people’s pockets.” .
On Saturday, Davey told the Observer that Johnson had simply lost the ability to hold together his precarious coalition of voters, which made voters want him out in increasing numbers. “It used to keep a lot of turntables, on the‘ red wall ’, the‘ blue wall ’, Scotland and in rural areas, but people have seen it through,” he said.
“The source of this is Partygate, where now people see that he lacks integrity. People who gave him the benefit of the doubt no longer believe him. He has lost the ability to keep different people on board because his own reputation is very much torn to pieces. “
So much so that more and more non-conservative voters seem willing to think hard about how best to use their votes to get rid of it.
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Tory seats at risk
Last week’s by-elections show that the Conservatives are now facing an electoral attack on several fronts, writes Michael Savage:
Rural constituencies
By winning Tiverton and Honiton, the Lib Dems have once again shown that their machine of winning by-elections has really come back. He has also raised hopes in the party that he could be strong again in a series of seats in the south-west where he was competitive before entering the coalition government in 2010. These are seats that normally voted for Brexit and some now have it. . large majorities. Unlike Tiverton, however, many have a relatively recent history of voting Lib Dem and the party has established activists in these areas. With the party silent on Brexit and now re-emerging as the place for protest voting, those seats could come into play again.
The red wall
After the victory in the 2019 Conservative elections, British politics was obsessed with the concept of “red wall” seats: a band of seats previously occupied by Labor located mainly in the north and in the Midlands where Brexit and concern by Jeremy Corbyn helped the Conservatives break up. . Lately, the term has become a general term for the traditional Labor seats that the party is now fighting to get back to the Conservatives. Labor suggests his victory in the Wakefield by-election is a sign that Keir Starmer is succeeding in this task, putting a group of about 40 seats in sight.
The blue wall
In their attempt to appeal to pro-Brexit voters and pursue “wedge” political issues that they believe attract them, the Conservatives are creating trouble by clinging to another part of their electoral coalition: richer, of liberal and pro-Remain Tories mentality. who have previously supported the party under David Cameron and Theresa May. Issues such as Brexit, the policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda and blaming Labor for the train strikes, are less likely to keep them on the sidelines. Both Lib Dems and Labor are gearing up for these seats, which often undergo demographic changes that make them more difficult for conservatives. Another 40 seats, such as Esher and Walton, occupied by Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, could be in that group.
Scotland
While the Conservatives only have six Scottish MPs, both Labor and Liberals believe that the better they do it in England, the harder it will be for the Conservatives in Scotland. They say that once Scotland’s hesitant voters see an opportunity to replace the Conservative government in Westminster, they will back down for Labor and take them further.