3. Why is the London Commuter belt so conservative. Is it more exurb thus semi rural as opposed to suburban as usually in North America suburbs tend to be bellwethers not heavily conservative. Now true here in Canada in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa, the areas just beyond the urban/rural fringe tend to be some of the strongest Tory ridings think York-Simcoe, Carleton, or Langley-Aldergrove so far anyone familiar with Canada is the London commuter belt more akin to those ridings than a typical suburban one like say Burlington, Kanata-Carleton, or Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows which are only lean conservative not solid (they lost those in 2015).
As someone who lives in London I'll have a shot at answering this.
My seat is the typical inner London Labour seat (2,000 majority) and has a high combination of Afro-Carribean residents, local authority housing and public sector workers. But the neighboring constituency is Beckenham; one of the safest tory seats. How come?
Mainly because people in Beckenham are much richer; and more concerned about Inheritance tax, crime etc. Just driving around you can tell the area is different; everyone has a driveway, mostly detached houses, lots of retired people.
These seats generally stayed blue; older residents, combined with ex-ukip voters were happy to vote for Theresa May.
The problem seats are Croydon Central, Putney etc where people are generally more affluent, but are still see themselves as culturally liberal; more accepting of immigration, would have gay friends, but still think that taxes should be low, that benefits are too generous. Combined with wealthy Hindus, and other ethnic minorities. Basically people who would happily vote for David Cameron, but not 'Citizens of Nowhere' Theresa May.
So that's why the commuter belt should be divided up into two; basically I'd wager the higher the remain vote the more likely to fall in the second category they are.
