Farage’s Brexit Party will not block Johnson’s Conervatives in coming UK election
This is potentially big news:
In a massive boost to Prime Minister Boris Johnson-led British Conservatives, Nigel Farage has pulled hundreds of Brexit Party candidates ahead of the December 12 election. The Brexit Party will not field candidates in all 317 seats that the ruling Conservative party won in the last general election.
“The Brexit party will not contest the 317 seats the Conservatives won at the last election,” Farage said. “We will concentrate our total effort into all the seats that are held by the Labour party, who have completely broken their manifesto pledge in 2017 to respect the result of the referendum, and we will also take on the rest of the remainer parties. We will stand up and fight them all.”
The Brexit Party had the potential of costing Prime Minister Johnson the election, a “wargaming” simulation conducted by the Daily Telegraph concluded on Monday. The newspaper predicted, “Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party could decide [the] election by denying Conservatives 90 extra seats.”
So that’s got to be good for Johnson and the Brexit forces. But here’s my question: why doesn’t Johnson pull out of the contests for the seats Conservatives don’t presently hold? Isn’t there still a good possibility that the Brexit candidates and the Conservative candidates in those districts will split the pro-Brexit vote and allow a Labour candidate to win those particular seats?
This is significant because lot of people who are in the Leave camp and vote for the Labour Party will simply not vote for the Conservative party under any circumstances which is viewed by the working class as just a bunch of toffs. They are much more willing to vote for the Brexit party. So this is like to see the Leave voters in Labour Party split into two camps – Labour and Brexit.
Another point which will be interesting to watch is how the LibDems party does. This party passed a resolution in a previous party meeting which stated that they were simply going to ignore the results of the referendum. If there is genuine anger against the “elites” then it might manifest itself in the form of reduced seats for LibDems
Forgot to add one point. Conservatives are currently in the minority and if they “pull out of the contests for the seats Conservatives don’t presently hold” then they will never get the majority.
Andy, help: there were a large number of defectors from Johnson’s seats as I understood the doings a couple of weeks ago. Presumably the constituents in those districts won’t return pols who campaigned on leave yet jump to the aid of remain? So what think you of the Tories’ chances in those places?
Probably a formula for making a probabilistic calculation on that, if the demographics for the borough or riding or whatever is known. Borough over there, still?
Looked it up. “Constituencies”
Scrolling down this list, it appears that in area where Labor won with 45 to 59% of the totals, UKIP or even more, The Liberal Dems had an impact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2017_United_Kingdom_general_election
Since I suppose UKIP voters to be more militantly “conservative ” than Liberal Democrats, the lowly one thousand to 1500 votes UKIP gets, might just provide the edge the Conservatives need in a number of districts.
Looks like the Lib Dems are a “vote principle” and commit suicide party over there. Much as the Libertarians have become here.
sdferr:
There were a total of 21 Tory rebels. Of these 13 will not be seeking reelection. 8 of them have given the nod by Johnson to run again presumably after they were read the riot act. If Johnson is ok with them then I guess they are back in the fold on the Leave side.
Thanks Andy. Still I wonder what happened to once burned twice shy? Ah well . . . eyes on.
sdferr:
If those MPs rebel again then I guess it could go two ways. One, use the Recall of MPs Act, which has led to two MPs being recalled and subsequently leading to a by-election. Second path is the one that is unfolding in Spain where they just had a second election since April and the fourth one in four years.
In UK the riding associations vote on who will be the candidate. Perhaps Johnson had no choice but to go with what was decided locally.
If those MPs rebel again then I guess it could go two ways. One, use the Recall of MPs Act, which has led to two MPs being recalled and subsequently leading to a by-election. Second path is the one that is unfolding in Spain where they just had a second election since April and the fourth one in four years.
The third way: tar, feathers.
Leave.
Stop – – – – ing around and leave !
I assume they employ statisticians who can model how the Conservative vote would re-deploy in the event the Tory candidate withdrew from the contest. Some voters would stay home, some would vote Brexit, some would vote for the Liberal Democrats, some eccentrics would vote Labour, and you’d have a similar number scattering between the rump UKIP, the regional parties, and sundry. So, it’s the probability of a Conservative plurality v. the probability that the Brexit base plus redeployed Conservative voters would have a plurality. I’m guessing that’s where the Brexit Party is already siphoning off an important share of votes which would go to Labour or the regional parties in other circumstances. The Brexit Party is currently polling around 9% while the Labour Party is polling just north of 30%. Wouldn’t surprise me to discover that the number of constituencies nationwide where pulling the Tory candidate would be optimal would be fewer than 40.