26 Britain The EconomistNovember 16th 2019
2 majority fell, in a pattern repeated across
the country as Labour surged.
Both Labour and the Conservatives did
exceptionally well in terms of vote share in- But in seats like Reading West, the
2017 result is a floor for the Tory vote. For
Labour, it risks being a ceiling. The party
maxed out its vote in places like Reading
West, says James Johnson of jlPartners, a
pollster. Smaller parties like the Liberal
Democrats were squeezed to the point of
collapse. “There is only room for those oth-
er parties to grow,” says Mr Johnson.
While the Lib Dems chomp away at La-
bour’s vote share, the Brexit Party has stood
down in the constituency (after our poll
was taken). That should make life easier
still for Mr Sharma, as most Brexit Party
backers are expected to switch to the To-
ries. Labour hopes that in time the Lib Dem
vote will be eroded, as Remainers realise
that, under first-past-the-post, only La-
bour can beat the Conservatives in seats
like Reading West. Labour’s leaflets remind
wavering voters that it came within 3,000
votes of displacing the Tories last time,
whereas the Lib Dems were 22,000 behind.
Labour activists now pray for a repeat of
the party’s late surge in 2017, hoping that
when the party’s manifesto is published
more voters will return to the flock. At least
opinion of Mr Corbyn cannot get much
worse: about 47% in Reading West think
Boris Johnson would make the best prime
minister, whereas only 13% opt for Mr Cor-
byn. Labour may benefit from having a lo-
cal candidate, Rachel Eden, a long-serving
councillor. (“I remember when this was
fields,” she says of the newish flats sur-
rounding a café in the south of the town.
“Well, I say ‘fields’—the remains of a sew-
age works.”)
Labour has cause for longer-term opti-
mism about towns like Reading, even if the
prospects this time look grim. Demo-
graphic change could help it in future, ar-
gues Rob Wilson, a former Conservative mp
who represented the eastern half of the
town in 2005-17. Reading has become more
ethnically diverse, while young middle-
class professionals (who these days tend to
vote Labour) have moved in. Londoners ac-
count for 16% of home sales in Reading in
the past year, according to Hamptons Inter-
national, an estate agent. Similar trends
across the south-east helped Labour gain
seats in places like Brighton in 2017, aswell
as biting into the “doughnut” of outer-Lon-
don constituencies that used to vote Tory.
This time, however, with the Lib Dems
polling in the teens—rather than on life-
support as they were in 2017—these seats
may prove trickier for Labour. And the Con-
servatives are unlikely to make the same
mistakes as in 2017,such as putting out a
manifesto with few goodies for voters. In
places such as Reading West, Labour
climbed a mountain at the last election.
But in the past two years, they seem to have
slipped back down it. 7West-side Tory
Britain, Reading West constituency
2019 general election voting intention*, %Sources: Survation;
The Economist0 20 40 60OtherBrexit Party†Lib DemLabourConservativeVote share, 2017Central estimate
95% confidence interval*Telephone poll of 410 adults surveyed
on November 7th-9th. “Don’t know ” and
refused removed †No longer standingI
t may havebeen the most significant
moment of the election campaign. On
November 11th Nigel Farage, leader of the
Brexit Party, who had talked of fighting 600
seats, said he would not field candidates in
the 317 won by the Tories in 2017. He had
sought a pact with Boris Johnson, but after
being rejected he offered a “unilateral” alli-
ance. His barely credible explanation was
that, having denounced Mr Johnson’s
Brexit as little better than Remain, he had
seen a video in which the prime minister
promised a Canada-style free-trade deal
and no extension of the transition period
beyond December 2020.
The truth is that Mr Farage was under
immense pressure from his financial and
political backers not to jeopardise the elec-
tion by splitting the pro-Brexit vote, there-
by risking losing Brexit altogether. Yet al-
most as important as his decision not to
fight Tory incumbents was his insistence
that he would still run candidates in other
seats. Brexiteers demanded that he go fur-
ther by standing down in Leave-voting La-
bour marginals which the Tories need to
win. But as we went to press Mr Farage was
stubbornly refusing to give way.
Even so, his decision not to fight the To-
ries directly is a boost for Mr Johnson. Ac-
cording to Matthew Goodwin of the Uni-
versity of Kent, two-thirds of the most
marginal Tory seats voted Leave in 2016. A
significant Brexit Party vote might have
tipped several the opposition’s way. And
the indirect effect of Mr Farage’s announce-ment may count even more. Chris Hanretty
of Royal Holloway, University of London,
says the psychological impact on hardline
Brexiteers of Mr Farage actively supporting
Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal will be profound,
encouraging more to vote Tory.
Yet the Brexit Party could still dent Mr
Johnson’s chances of winning Leave-back-
ing Labour marginals. Mr Farage claims
that in these seats the party will mostly win
over Labour supporters who are unhappy
with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. But most
pollsters reckon it draws at least twice as
many votes from the Tories as from Labour.
Being associated with Mr Farage could
cost Mr Johnson some support in pro-Re-
main areas. As many as 5m Tory voters in
2017 backed Remain in the 2016 referen-
dum. Many will no doubt vote Conserva-
tive again, but a few may be put off by Mr
Farage’s support of the prime minister’s
hard Brexit. Labour is trying to win over
even more by linking Mr Johnson and Mr
Farage to their mutual American friend,
Donald Trump. The president has long
called for a pact between the two men.
If the two most pro-Brexit parties can
enter a form of electoral alliance, why can’t
the anti-Brexit parties? Three of them—the
Liberal Democrats, Greens and Plaid
Cymru—have formed a “Unite to Remain”
alliance, in which they agree not to run
against each other in 60 seats. The Lib
Dems have also decided not to oppose Do-
minic Grieve, a renegade ex-Tory running
as an independent in Beaconsfield. The
Greens have pulled out of Chingford, to in-
crease Labour’s chances of unseating Iain
Duncan Smith, a hardline Tory Brexiteer.
What would make a real difference is a
pact between the Lib Dems and Labour. Yet
the parties’ tribal instincts and ingrained
hostility stand in the way. Heidi Allen, a
former Tory mpturned Lib Dem, says her
party approached Labour several times but
was rebuffed. Labour insists on running
candidates everywhere. The party leader-
ship damns the Lib Dems for joining David
Cameron’s (pro-austerity) coalition in- Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, is a
fierce critic of Mr Corbyn. This week her
party insisted on fielding new candidates
in Canterbury and High Peak, upsetting the
two existing ones who had both stood
down to give Labour a clear run and are
now advocating a Labour vote.
In theory the electorate could do the job
by voting tactically for whoever is most
likely to defeat the Conservatives. Several
websites now offer advice on this, though
they do not always agree. But although tac-
tical voting has increased since the 1990s, it
is unlikely to be extensive enough to
change the result. Mr Goodwin draws an
analogy with the 1983 election, which Mar-
garet Thatcher won by a landslide despite
losing vote share. The main reason was a
divided opposition. 7
The Brexit Party boosts the Tories,
while opposition parties keep fightingTactical votingNigel Farage’s
Christmas present