The EconomistNovember 30th 2019 Britain 532 Islamophobia. His affection for well-paid
hyperbole in his former side-gig as a news-
paper columnist has not helped. A sugges-
tion that women wearing burqas “look like
letterboxes” caused particular offence.
This week the Muslim Council of Britain is-
sued a statement accusing the Tories of al-
lowing Islamophobia to “fester in society”.
Religious leaders often speak out, but
they tend to stop short of telling people
how to vote, says Nick Spencer of Theos, a
think-tank. Mr Mirvis’s remarks suggest he
“considers this issue sufficiently serious as
to break the unwritten protocol”, he adds.
Such warnings have travelled well be-
yond Britain’s 260,000 or so Jews, just as
Mr Johnson’s comments have offended
more than merely Muslims. According to
one poll, 30% of Britons think Mr Corbyn is
an anti-Semite, and the same share consid-
er Mr Johnson a racist. Prejudice has be-
come an electoral liability for both men.
As for Jews and Muslims themselves,
most have already made up their minds.
British Jews once favoured Labour, in com-
mon with other minority groups. But they
began to drift rightward in the 1980s when
Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister,
held the north London seat of Finchley. Its
sizeable Jewish population approved of her
lack of prejudice towards Jewish ministers
and her rapport with the then chief rabbi.
Growing affluence led others to switch
sides. By 2010 half of Jews voted Tory, ac-
cording to an analysis by Ben Clements of
British Religion in Numbers, a specialist
website. Mr Corbyn has persuaded others
to follow suit. In 2017 more than six in ten
Jews voted Tory (see chart on previous
page). Only one in ten has a positive view of
Mr Corbyn, according to a study by aca-
demics at Manchester University. Nearly
two-thirds say they are unlikely ever to
vote Labour again, 20 points more than
among the overall electorate.
Nor will Tory Islamophobia persuade
many Muslims to vote Labour, since most
already do. In the degree of their attach-
ment to Labour and distrust of the Tories,
Muslim voters are a “mirror image” of their
Jewish counterparts, says Maria Sobolew-
ska, one of the Manchester academics. The
intensity of their support has been growing
in recent years, too. According to Mr Clem-
ents’s analysis, 66% of Muslims voted La-
bour in 2015. In 2017, 85% did so.
This does not reflect a reaction against
Mr Johnson, who became leader only this
year. In any case, Nicole Martin, also of
Manchester, points out that many Muslims
have long perceived the Tories to be preju-
diced against them. Instead, the rise points
to their personal endorsement of Mr Cor-
byn, a long-standing advocate of Palestin-
ian statehood and critic of Western adven-
tures in the Middle East. In the end, both
sets of worshippers may be thinking of Mr
Corbyn as they cast their ballots. 7
the constituencyof War-
wick and Leamington was
once known as the Garden
of Eden, not because it is
beautiful—though it is—
but because it was the Con-
servative stronghold of An-
thony Eden, who won the
seat nine times over 34
years.Thefirst Labour candidate ever field-
ed in the constituency was Daisy Greville,
Countess of Warwick, who campaigned
from the back seat of a Rolls-Royce in 1923,
says Wyn Grant of Warwick University. La-
bour took the seat only in 1997, and held it
until the end of the Blair-Brown era in 2010.
Few foresaw the victory of Labour’s Matt
Western in 2017. “It wasn’t a surprise,” says
Mr Western, who clinched the seat by 1,206
votes. “It was a shock.” In a constituency
that backed Remain by 58% to 42% in the
referendum of 2016, Brexit was the Tories’
undoing. The pattern was repeated in
enough Tory-held seats to deprive Theresa
May of her majority.
This time there are fears among anti-
Brexit campaigners that the Remain vote
could be fatally split, in Warwick and con-
stituencies like it. Twenty seats in England
that backed Remain by more than 55% have
surmountable majorities of under 5,000. If
enough Labour voters frustrated with Je-
remy Corbyn’s neutrality on Brexit defect
to the Lib Dems, many of those seats could
go to the Tories. Yet a poll for The Economist
by Survation suggests that, in Warwick at
least, a certain amount of tactical voting is
going on. The Lib Dem vote is up only five
points on 2017, with Labour and the Tories
as closely tied as they were last time (seechart).Votersseemtobeorganising them-
selves into Leave and Remain camps even
in the absence of a formal pro-eualliance.
It is “fantastic to be in a constituency
where your vote is valued”, says Mark Ad-
ams, a recent transplant from London. Mr
Adams runs Vitsoe, a high-end furniture-
maker that employs some 40 people in
Warwick and exports about 70% of its
goods. Although working with Germans
for 35 years gave him “ample evidence to be
a passionate Leaver”, he believes Britain is
better off inside the eu. Who will get his
vote? “I am checking all the tactical-voting
sites to cast my vote to achieve Remain,” he
says, even if it means “holding one’s nose”
in the polling booth.
The Lib Dem candidate, Louis Adam,
who optimistically describes the seat as a
three-way marginal, is nonetheless on
track to keep his deposit—and perhaps to
let in the Conservatives in the process. The
Tories’ man, Jack Rankin, must overcome
the suspicion of some locals that he is an
out-of-towner, parachuted in as he was
from Windsor, 70 miles away.
The contest may come down to the stu-
dent vote, which helped Mr Western last
time. Warwick’s students’ union is littered
with pamphlets encouraging its 27,000
students to vote; the university’s mobile
app has been pinging notifications too. But
the election is five days after term ends,
and many students will have gone home by
then. Daniel Ryan, a 20-year-old physics
student from London, and James Cuttell, a
classmate from Derby, say they and most of
their friends are unsure whether they will
vote at home or in Warwick. Mr Ryan con-
siders Boris Johnson a “nutter”, Jeremy
Corbyn “dangerous” and disagrees with the
Lib Dems’ policy of simply disregarding the
referendum. “I do feel like there are no
good options,” he says. 7ROYAL LEAMINGTON SPA AND WARWICK
Remainers prepare to hold their noses
and vote tacticallyBrexit and the electionAlas, poor Warwick
swing
seatsI knew him, a ratio
WarwickandLeamingtonconstituency
2019 generalelectionvotingintention*,%Sources:Survation;
The Economist0 10 20 30 40 50OtherBrexit PartyLib DemLabourConservativeVote share, 2017Central estimate
95% confidence interval*Telephone poll of 413 adults
surveyed on November 21st-23rd.
“Don’t know ” and refused removedSupporting Western democracy