I’ve had a request to open up a comments thread for the upcoming UK election.
I’m not planning to cover that election on this site, but if you’d like to discuss it, you can do so here.
UK election open thread
I’ve had a request to open up a comments thread for the upcoming UK election.
I’m not planning to cover that election on this site, but if you’d like to discuss it, you can do so here.
Correction: all of Northern Ireland is done
Only four English seats to be counted and three Scottish seats after Angus and Perthshire was just called for the SNP who have retained the seat.
Independent gain from Labour: Birmingham Perry Barr
The last seats are taking a long time.
Labor won hendon an affluent North London seat by 15 votes and which has a strong Jewish community as well.
Why does uk keep fpp?
Same reason usa does it for the most part
Those Scottish seats still haven’t been called.
Update: Conservatives hold Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, which is in Scotland. Two Scottish seats left.
Labour gains: Hendon (by 15 votes), Poole (by 18 votes)
I expect that there may be recounts in those seats.
Seats still in doubt:
* Dumfries and Galloway (Scotland, Conservative)
* Inverness, Skye and West Ross-Shire (Scotland, SNP)
* South Basildon and East Thurrock (England, Conservative)
I expect the two Scottish seats to be retained by their respective incumbents while South Basildon and East Thurrock is in play.
It’s down to the wire now. If the Conservatives don’t win South Basildon and East Thurrock then they’re in very serious trouble in Greater London and the Home Counties.
The one good thing for the Conservatives tonight is that they’ve performed somewhat well in Scotland, despite being wiped out in Wales.
Conservatives held on to Dumfries and Galloway so only 1 seat loss in Scotland.
Again, the Torys have managed to hold their vote up in Scotland, only losing one seat. Even though they only hold five seats there, all of which are rural seats, at least they actually held seats. They only lost one, compared to England where they lost their majority and Wales where they’ve been completely wiped out.
Opinion polling and exit polling overestimated Reform’s seat count. They said up to 13. Reform won 4 and three of them were already household names with large followings – Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and Lee Anderson (a defector from the Conservatives). I admit that I estimated their overall vote nationwide and didn’t expect them to come second in that many seats, outside their target seats. I saw one seat where the Tories got pushed to fourth.
The polling underestimated the Green Party’s seat count. I predicted they’d get a second seat but not a third or fourth seat, let alone in Tory heartland. This means the Greens and Reform have the same number of MPs.
Rishi Sunak has resigned as Conservative leader but says he won’t resign until his successor is appointed. Meanwhile Sir Keir Starmer will soon visit King Charles III to be appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The swing against the Torys in Clacton was –44%, mostly going to Nigel Farage (Reform). That’s a huge swing.
The Conservatives had ended up finishing second there, with Labour a distant third.
There are some other unusual results here
– Leicester East was the only seat that went from Labour to Conservative, I wonder if it has to do with the controversy with existing long-time Labour turned independent incumbent Keith Vaz plus Conservatives doing better among non-Muslims Indians due to Rishi Sunak (More on this below)?
– How did The Green Party been able to win North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley despite both being Conservative strongholds and voted Leave? Is it a fluke a bit like if Gippsland voted for The Greens or am I missing something?
– Areas that had High Indian (non-muslim) concentrations had a higher negative swing to Labour than Conservatives so I wonder if it had to do with Rishi Sunak being the first ethnic Indian PM?
@ Marh
Also Harrow East which has a large non-Muslim South Asian Community also had a good result for the Tories. I so think there maybe a trend of Hindus and Sikhs in the UK trending right-wing maybe it is like the Chinese community pre-2022 in Australia. Sunak maybe a factor but probably not the only one. The community increasingly affluent and much more settled than Australian South Asians who are more recent arrivals. The community in the UK is increasingly 2nd and 3rd generation and hardline stance on immigration etc by the right-wing does not really bother them. Also the right-wing media are not as hostile to non-muslim South Asians.
It looks as if there is a collapse in the Labour vote in working class and middle-class ethnic parts of large cities, in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester. They were safe Labour seats to begin with and that’s why hardly any of them flipped.
Leicester East is the only Tory pick up, despite both majors losing votes. There was massive vote splitting. Lib Dems got a big swing and not one, but two Labour turned independent candidates ran, thus splitting the centre and centre left vote.
@ Votante,
I think Labour vote only collapsed where there is large concentration of Muslims. In Clapham and Brixton Hill where there is a large concentration of Black Caribbeans Labour vote went up slightly. Interestingly, Greens have come second in many Labour constituencies in London especially where there is a large Muslim community.
Bye Bye Liz Truss. That really was the story of the night.
The Conservatives’ shock gain of Leicester East may have been on economic grounds plus as Marh said the controversy with the incumbent member. However, the Conservatives still decreased their vote there, it’s just that under the UK’s system of FPTP it’s winner takes all. So Labour’s vote extremely heavily decreased so the Torys gained it.
Interestingly at the 2007 Australian federal election when Australia’s economy was great but people wanted change so Labor under Kevin Rudd got a landslide win over the Coalition under John Howard, it’s worth noting that the Coalition actually gained two seats in Perth from Labor (Cowan and Swan), while Hasluck was gained by Labor, therefore the Coalition had a net increase of +1 seat in WA in 2007, likely due to the unpopular state Labor government that lost office at the 2008 state election and because the national economy was great.
Anyway, back to the UK, the final seat to be called is Inverness, Skye and Ross-Shire which I think will be retained by the SNP. Reform has gained South Basildon and Thurrock from the Torys.
@Nimalan, the Greens scored double digits and even came second in a number of London seats. This mainly happened in traditional Labour seats, regardless of demographic makeup.
I think it’s not just the Palestine issue. Starmer is seen as quite neoliberal or Tory lite for the working class and voters were then drawn to the Greens for their left wing economic policies. There might be some who voted Greens because they’re pro-EU.
Further to Nimalan’s point, here’s an interesting fact:
In 2018, Pauline Hanson actually attended the Hindu Council of Australia’s Diwali event at Parliament House:
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/hindi/en/article/i-am-not-anti-migrant-at-all-pauline-hanson-says-theres-no-problem-with-indian-migrants/de5e5yi09
Furthermore, Raj Guruswamy (an Indian-born former Adani executive) was one of the party’s Senate candidates for Queensland in 2022 (along with Hanson herself (whose seat was up for grabs) and ex-LNP MP George Christensen).
The final Scottish seat is still yet to be called. It’s the only seat that hasn’t been called yet.
im predicting labor will be forced into minority in 2029 and defeated by a right coalition in 2034. Labor didnt actually gain any votes this time around because of FPTP the vote on the right fractured between the Tories, Reform and the LD. this made it easy for labour to gain the seat it did
@NP re Cowan, I don’t think it was state WA Labor necessarily (they only narrowly lost in 2008 and polls leading up were largely 50/50, some WA Libs upon seeing the hung parliament results at the time even thought they had lost since WA Nats not being a coalition partner had precedent for backing Labor before). If you look at 2004 results, Luke Simpkins had an 8% swing towards him and nearly unseated the incumbent – just that Graham Edwards had a strong personal vote. Edwards then retired at the next election, and the swing in 2007 was much smaller compared to 04, but enough to tip Simpkins over the line. In Swan, the swing was also very small too, but again, enough to tip Steve Irons over the line.
Agree Votante,
Keir Starmer presented himself as a small target, centrist pragmatic and safe pair of hands this may have led to left-wing voters leaving Labor.
@WL but the thing is that year the Coalition only increased their TPP vote against Labor in five seats: Calare, Cowan (gained), Franklin, Swan (gained) and Wentworth.
Calare had a +0.64% swing to the Nationals (John Cobb) after the redistribution turned it from an independent seat to a Nationals seat (Peter Condren retired). Wentworth was affected by a redistribution so there was technically a +1.34% swing to the Liberals (Malcolm Turnbull), plus in 2004 a guy called Peter King (an independent who contested in 2004 and got a high vote share and even though most of his voters switched back to the Liberals in 2007 his preferences in 2004 were split between the Liberals and Labor) contested, and in 2007 he didn’t.
Franklin had a +3.11% swing to the Liberals but Labor’s Julie Collins still retained it. This is likely due to the retirement of sitting Labor MP Harry Quick, plus the swing to Labor in Tasmania was smaller than it was on the mainland.
Then the two WA seats were both marginal seats in Perth, and both were working-class. John Howard is well-known for his appeal to ordinary working-class and middle-class Australians, hence the term “Howard’s battlers”.
Fpp….. doesn’t explain the Labor win but the winner’s bonus was huge. The conservatives dropped in excess of 20% in primary votes and ended with about 20% you don’t expect to win when roughly 80% of the electorate votes against you . Maybe preferential voting will be introduced in uk in the medium term
John I would not classify the ld as right wing. More centrist like the Australian Democrats before their demise. The SNP I would classify as left.. ditto the greens.
@ NP
Swan is a socially mixed seat and not all of it is working class in fact the South Perth LGA part is wealthy as it is waterfront and includes private schools. There was only a 0.2% swing to Libs in 2007 but that was enough. If we look at booth level results in Swan in 2007 the Libs got swings to them in South Perth and Como but swings against them in working class Cannington. Adam Carr actually pointed the Doctors Wives seats such as Kooyong, Higgins, Brisbane, Curtin actually had the smallest swings to Labor that election while mortgage belt seats such as Calwell, Macarthur, Holt actually had the biggest swings to Labor,
NP. … the thing that puzzles me about Wentworth was Turnbull gained about 10% 2pp swing in 2010 which he retained as long as he was the mp.
@Nimalan because those mortgage belt seats had relatively lower-than-normal Labor TPP votes because Howard appealed very well to working-class voters. In 2007 some of them went back to Labor.
@Michael Quinlivan the UK Liberal Democrats are centrist or centre-left.
NP, actually the SNP lost the last seat to the Lib Dems.
Pretty sure the SNP still has a conservative wing that does well in rural and outer suburban seats. I think once Scottish independence is achieved, the remaining right-wing SNP voters will leave towards Alba and others.
@Daniel T thanks for the correction and that’s good.
@Ian Wikipedia defines the SNP as centre-left.
Nether Portal, the SNP is a bunch of factions that unite around Scottish independence. The left-wing under Sturgeon, Yousaf and Swinney have dominated the party since Salmond left. Wikipedia just doesn’t explain it correctly.
@ NP
Those mortgage belt seats had a big swing to Libs in 2004 to the campaign on interest rates a part of 2007 was a correction. The other thing workchoices would have had a bigger impact in working class seats than doctors wives seats. Kevin Rudd tried to be Howard lite and emphasised that he was a Christian family man
Also pleased that the NP lost the last seat i am very happy that SNP is single digits no indyref in the next 5 years. With respect to SNP while it is currently Centre-Left who see it as a vehicle for Scottish independence and can appeal across class lines so it wins both working class industrial Glasgow and rural areas.
@micheal yes but but lean more to the right. starmer only won those seats because of the FPTP voting system and the fractured vote on the right. labour actually got 500k less votes this time around and only 35% of the vote yet got 65% of the seats. i imagne Reform will target Labour at the next election and labour wont hold its majority.
lets face it the thing that killed the right in the US, UK and Aus was covid. without it the tories would still be in charge in the UK the Australian 2022 election would probably have been a hung parliament but labor probably securing govt. and the US election would have been much closer.
I wouldn’t say Covid itself was the final straw. The lockdown parties sealed Boris’s fate. There was Liz Truss, immigration, the economy, NHS and more recently, the election gaffes.
The Conservatives got huge majorities in 2019 that a split in the non-Labour vote, thanks to swings to Reform (and maybe Boris Johnson fans), and a smaller swing back to Labour under FPTP meant that seats flipped to Labour.
Votante/John, another point that weakened the Tories in the UK was the failed privitisation of public transport services such as railways. Multiple contracts were mismanaged, and there was insufficient oversight of the companies involved, which also occurred for the Sutherland Region 10 bus services (run by U-Go mobility, who suffered from poor performance and large-scale cancellations).
I think Liz Truss was the end. She immediately implemented an undiluted version of conservative policy, and it crashed the economy. Utter and clear failure at the thing Tories are meant to be good at. After that it was clear the government had no future, and Sunak was too muddled to argue for any kind of reboot.
Alright. The UK election is done.
@Ben, could you please open a similar thread for the US? I hope I’m not bothering you.
UK election maps, but with preferential voting:
Scotland: https://jmp.sh/cWpalsu2
Wales: https://jmp.sh/R0KrjXbZ
I’ve basically assumed that the majority of Reform UK (like One Nation) preferences go to the Conservatives (Tories; like the Liberals/National Coalition), while the vast majority of Greens preferences go to Labour, as do the majority of Liberal Democrats (like teals) preferences. For the pro-independence parties (the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Alba Party in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales), I’ve assumed that while all three overwhelmingly preference Labour and the Lib Dems ahead of the Conservatives and Reform, I’ve assumed that Labour and the Lib Dems actually preference the Conservatives ahead of those pro-independence parties due to all of the three British major parties (the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems) all are anti-independence. However, I’ve assumed that the Green Party preferences the pro-independence parties ahead of everyone else since they do support Scottish and Welsh independence.
For those who don’t know the colour system:
* Blue: Conservative Party
* Red: Labour Party
* Orange: Liberal Democrats
* Turquoise: Reform UK (*)
* Green: Green Party (*)
* Yellow: Scottish National Party
* Dark green: Plaid Cymru / Party of Wales
* Grey: Independents (*)
(*) While Reform UK, the Greens and independents did contest seats across the UK and won several seats in England, they didn’t win any in Scotland or Wales.
Interestingly while the Conservatives would not have been wiped out in Wales under preferential voting, in Scotland they would’ve actually gained a seat from the SNP. Furthermore, the SNP who once had a majority of Scottish seats in the House of Commons and currently form government in Scotland, their very poor performance in 2024 (in contrast to 2019 where they won a landslide in Scotland) just got way worse. Under preferential voting, if the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems all banded together and preferenced each other ahead of the SNP then the SNP would only have one seat in Westminster.
@np no point in talking about the presidency trump has already won. Just a matter of by how much. We can talk about house senate and trumps VP pick though.
@John true.
Anyway I didn’t do a map for England because it was too much work. But obviously Labour gains where the Reform had a large vote share would be still Tory seats.
Ynys Môn is an interesting rural seat since the Tories only gained it in 2019 but only narrowly lost it in 2024 and it didn’t go back to Labour it went to Plaid Cymru. And under preferential voting it would’ve still been a Tory seat.
Is northern Wales moving away from Labour?
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