A remarkable statistic about this year’s local council elections
No, it’s not about just how well the Liberal Democrats did (so well, the results have triggered a big wave of new members).
Rather, it’s about the sort of seats that were up for election this year.
They were more Leave than the country as a whole. Leave got 56% across these areas in the referendum:
Statistic of the day. If the referendum had been confined to those places where there were local elections on Thurs Leave would have won 56% to 44%. Yet the main gainers in the locals, the LDs, are the most anti Brexit national party
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 4, 2019
This wasn’t just Remain areas plumping for a Remain party. It was Leave areas showing how fed up they are with the Labour-Conservative Brexit duopoly too. (And handing Ukip a big seat loss on the side too.)
Assuming the turnout was around the 35% average or less, could it be due (at least in part) to remain voters turning out in force whilst Tory and Labour Brexit supporters did not vote?
Is it still valid to talk about ‘Leave areas’ when so many people are changing their minds/entering the demographic/leaving it? Could it be that some of them are no longer Leave areas and are voting LD is showing they would now vote Remain? To take Sunderland as an extreme example. It would take (just) 12% of them to shift and they would become Remain.
Venetia has a point. We should complain to the Electoral Commission about the fake news and populism, still harking back to the Referendum and the lies from Conservative and Labour that the vote on Thursday was people in a polling booth saying we have proved the EU is best. Now leave voters stayed at home. That proves they accept that the project promise had been fulfilled we looked hard at leaving and it’s not worth it or they’d have voted . The impact assessments show categorically that the EU delivers massive economic advantages to the UK and the social mobility and citizenship benefits have been proved to have grown a community with a beating heart that we might say needs some obesity management in some areas, surgery for others, but strong enough to be the best way forward.
In January this year it s estimated that 2 million voters have died since the referendum but 2 million 18year olds have registered during the same period. Talking about Leave areas presumes the identical demographics to 2016. In SE coastal areas the provision of “cheap” housing caused by either death or move to care homes has diminished that generation to whom a nostalgic Leave campaign was targeted. While the gains of the party are great, campaign leaders need to take their eyes off Tories and Labour and analyse independent and Green voters.