UK General Election 2019 - Election Day and Results Thread

[Silent Hunter]

And who said anything about surpressed? A pretty major part of the story here is what was suggested would happen actually did, Labour failed to convince their supporters to vote for them, hence lower turnout. It just doesn't necessarily mean that the pool of Conservative voters in those constituencies has grown as much as people seem to be suggesting.

If there was any suppressing going on, it was the weather. When faced with an array of unappealing choices, you're less likely to go out to vote.

[jimrtex]

In reply to the above query, Labour lost a few Scottish deposits at the 2015 GE.

Thanks. I've found four so far in Scotland.

Aberdeenshire West & Kincardine
Angus
Banff & Buchan
Berwickshire, Roxborough, and Selkirk

So all rural areas with likely little factory workers.

[jimrtex]

Not much to say about the results, other than I expected it (even a slightly larger Conservative majority).

Weird that turnout was just 67% and dropping compared with 2017.

You should probably never go with the stupid Election Day reports of „long lines“ ...

With significantly higher turnout there probably would have been a hung parliament again, because no suppressed Labour vote.

You may mean "depressed" rather than "suppressed"?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Not much to say about the results, other than I expected it (even a slightly larger Conservative majority).

Weird that turnout was just 67% and dropping compared with 2017.

You should probably never go with the stupid Election Day reports of „long lines“ ...

With significantly higher turnout there probably would have been a hung parliament again, because no suppressed Labour vote.

You may mean "depressed" rather than "suppressed"?

Correct.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Large parts of my family can be accurately described as genepool Labour. Ties that go back, in some branches, to the ILP. And it so happens that if I were to count on my hands the number of relatives and  inlaws who over the past year or so have told or implied to me that they either won't or would struggle to vote Labour so long as THAT ****ING MAN is its Leader, then I run out of fingers. I am not aware of any of these people switching their vote Torywards. I am aware of some not voting, some voting for minor parties, some spoiling their ballots, some casting a reluctant Labour vote all the same but not being happy about doing so at all.

The plural of anecdote is not data, of course, but I feel this is indicative of something. Particularly as the data backs up the anecdotes...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A pretty major part of the story here is what was suggested would happen actually did, Labour failed to convince their supporters to vote for them, hence lower turnout. It just doesn't necessarily mean that the pool of Conservative voters in those constituencies has grown as much as people seem to be suggesting.

Correct. The Conservative electoral coalition in general is strikingly similar to that of 2017.

If there was any suppressing going on, it was the weather. When faced with an array of unappealing choices, you're less likely to go out to vote.

Yes, the two things are sometimes linked. If you aren't entirely sure whether you really want to vote for your usual party and it's dark and pissing it down...

[The Free North]

Large parts of my family can be accurately described as genepool Labour. Ties that go back, in some branches, to the ILP. And it so happens that if I were to count on my hands the number of relatives and  inlaws who over the past year or so have told or implied to me that they either won't or would struggle to vote Labour so long as THAT ****ING MAN is its Leader, then I run out of fingers. I am not aware of any of these people switching their vote Torywards. I am aware of some not voting, some voting for minor parties, some spoiling their ballots, some casting a reluctant Labour vote all the same but not being happy about doing so at all.

The plural of anecdote is not data, of course, but I feel this is indicative of something. Particularly as the data backs up the anecdotes...

Indeed. Which is why if you look at the vote changes in the North and Midlands you'll see the conservatives won not because of a mass exodus from Labour to Tory but because the Labour vote was fractured by Brexit voters. Yes, the Cons got a small bump, but without Nigel Farage, there is a greatly reduced Tory majority.

None of this points to a 're-aligning' election, but rather Labour voters trying to spite Corbyn and leadership in order to get the Brexit issue done and buried and a sane person in charge of the party again.

[Silent Hunter]

However, it could become one if Labour do not respond correctly. There is already a grassroots campaign backing Richard Burgon...

[Clyde1998]

Is Edinburgh South a wealthy urban seat? Labour's kept it since 1987 but before then it seems to have been quite Unionist/Conservative.

It's a very odd seat. Most wealthy seats in Scotland in the 80s were professionals working in the public sector - so were in a much more similar boat as the miners, ship builders, steel workers, etc. in the working class areas of Scotland/Britain than the professionals in England, who were largely working in the private sector. They feared losing their jobs in the same way as the working class did.

It's remained Labour in recent years largely as a result of anti-SNP tactical voting and a popular local MP. It was almost taken by the Lib Dems in 2005 and 2010 though.

The equivalent Scottish Parliament seat voted Labour in the constituency vote and Conservative in the regional list vote in 2016 (Labour were third on the list there, IIRC, showing the effects of tactical voting).

[Clyde1998]

In reply to the above query, Labour lost a few Scottish deposits at the 2015 GE.

Thanks. I've found four so far in Scotland.

Aberdeenshire West & Kincardine
Angus
Banff & Buchan
Berwickshire, Roxborough, and Selkirk

So all rural areas with likely little factory workers.

There are six - Moray and North East Fife in addition to that list. Labour were very weak in those seats even at their 'recent' Scottish peak in 1997, when they won about the same share of the vote as the SNP did this time (IIRC, Moray was their best result of the six in 1997 and they got less than 20% of the vote).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Edinburgh South is very much a university constituency.

[Gass3268]

However, it could become one if Labour do not respond correctly. There is already a grassroots campaign backing Richard Burgon...

I saw that guy last night on the CSPAN-2 BBC coverge, dude was so delusional.

[Helsinkian]

Woke Twitter leftists analysing the results, basically:

"If only we had called those Brexiters racist a few more times, we would have won."

[Silent Hunter]

Woke Twitter leftists analysing the results, basically:

"If only we had called those Brexiters racist a few more times, we would have won."

Ditto on Reddit...

[jaichind]

CON won 13,966,565 votes still barely misses the record set by 1992 CON with 14,093,007 which is the largest number of votes for one party in an election.

[Clyde1998]

Woke Twitter leftists analysing the results, basically:

"If only we had called those Brexiters racist a few more times, we would have won."

'We'll convince people to vote for us by telling them they're idiots!'

[Clyde1998]

However, it could become one if Labour do not respond correctly. There is already a grassroots campaign backing Richard Burgon...

I saw that on Twitter. I thought it was a parody. 😅

[mileslunn]

Honest question: Does anybody really think Corbyn's supposed antisemitism cost Labour a meaningful number of votes? Do working-class people in leave areas actually care about Corbyn's position on BDS or Israeli settlements? I personally doubt it but the media has been mentioning this issue non-stop as a factor.

That along with past support of IRA, Hamas and also supporting every SJW cause from university campuses was a huge turnoff.  People need to understand SJWs on university campuses may claim to care from working class, but they have no connections and many working communities find them intolerant, condescending, and out of touch with reality.  When Alan Johnson told Momentum to go back to being a student union, he was bang on as student union type politics don't sell on a national level.

Progressives that are outward looking can still win like Justin Trudueau, Macron, and Ardern but both are more centrist so they can offset loss of blue collar small communities with affluent suburbs while Labour's hard left platform just turns off both.  Other option is have someone similar to Danish PM Mette Fredericksen who took a hardline on immigration and was able to win back much of the nationalist left wing vote from Danish People's Party.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Honest question: Does anybody really think Corbyn's supposed antisemitism cost Labour a meaningful number of votes? Do working-class people in leave areas actually care about Corbyn's position on BDS or Israeli settlements? I personally doubt it but the media has been mentioning this issue non-stop as a factor.

That along with past support of IRA, Hamas and also supporting every SJW cause from university campuses was a huge turnoff.

I don't agree with pinning the rap on muh SJWs (whatever "SJW" means), but there's some truth to this--the sturm und drang around ~The Conflict~ and the spectacle of party infighting over minutiae of foreign policy that only a specific type of left-wing activist cares about probably made Corbyn come across as an out-of-touch woketariat type even to people who aren't exactly friends of the Jewish community themselves.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Honest question: Does anybody really think Corbyn's supposed antisemitism cost Labour a meaningful number of votes? Do working-class people in leave areas actually care about Corbyn's position on BDS or Israeli settlements? I personally doubt it but the media has been mentioning this issue non-stop as a factor.

That along with past support of IRA, Hamas and also supporting every SJW cause from university campuses was a huge turnoff.  People need to understand SJWs on university campuses may claim to care from working class, but they have no connections and many working communities find them intolerant, condescending, and out of touch with reality.  When Alan Johnson told Momentum to go back to being a student union, he was bang on as student union type politics don't sell on a national level.

Progressives that are outward looking can still win like Justin Trudueau, Macron, and Ardern but both are more centrist so they can offset loss of blue collar small communities with affluent suburbs while Labour's hard left platform just turns off both.  Other option is have someone similar to Danish PM Mette Fredericksen who took a hardline on immigration and was able to win back much of the nationalist left wing vote from Danish People's Party.

Speaking of Ardern, it’s my understanding that NZ’s Labour Party is less pro-immigration than the NZ National Party, which is a big flip from the US, for example.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thanks for the map. Can you make one of the 2-party swing as well? We all know what it's gonna look like, but I'm still morbidly curious.

[Oryxslayer]

Thanks for the map. Can you make one of the 2-party swing as well? We all know what it's gonna look like, but I'm still morbidly curious.

I got a prettier one with a key and title and the rest coming tomorrow, but here's the raw GIS. It's noticeable in some areas how well the swings correlate with Brexit, which themselves correlate with other demographics. In other areas, different data prevailed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps the very worst Labour result came at Bassetlaw, and as is invariably the case special factors were at work: for, yes, that was the constituency with THAT incredibly ugly, incredibly messy, incredibly public selection stitch-up. I presume most of the CLP sat on their hands or... er... even...

[Annatar]

Here's an interesting set of data, in seats where the leave vote was below 50%, in 2017 the vote was 34-41 in Labour's favour and the seat split was 73 Tory seats to 101 Labour seats. In 2019 in those seats, the margin improved by 4% for the Tories to a 32-35 defeat, and the seat totals were 66 Tory seats to 94 Labour seats. The Tories actually lost a net of 7 seats in areas that voted remain and got a 2% lower share of the vote.

In areas that voted more than 50% leave, in 2017 the vote was 47-39 in the Conservatives favour and they won 246 seats to Labour's 162. In 2019 in those areas they won the vote 52-32, improving by 12% and they increased their vote share by 5%. The seat count changed to 301 for the Conservatives vs 109 for Labour.

In areas that voted more than 55% leave, the improvement in the vote margin for the Conservatives was 15%, in seats that were more than 60% leave, the improvement was 17% in the Conservative Labour vote margin for the Tories. In seats that were more than 65% leave, the improvement in the Tory-Labour margin was 22%.

[mileslunn]

Here's an interesting set of data, in seats where the leave vote was below 50%, in 2017 the vote was 34-41 in Labour's favour and the seat split was 73 Tory seats to 101 Labour seats. In 2019 in those seats, the margin improved by 4% for the Tories to a 32-35 defeat, and the seat totals were 66 Tory seats to 94 Labour seats. The Tories actually lost a net of 7 seats in areas that voted remain and got a 2% lower share of the vote.

In areas that voted more than 50% leave, in 2017 the vote was 47-39 in the Conservatives favour and they won 246 seats to Labour's 162. In 2019 in those areas they won the vote 52-32, improving by 12% and they increased their vote share by 5%. The seat count changed to 301 for the Conservatives vs 109 for Labour.

In areas that voted more than 55% leave, the improvement in the vote margin for the Conservatives was 15%, in seats that were more than 60% leave, the improvement was 17% in the Conservative Labour vote margin for the Tories. In seats that were more than 65% leave, the improvement in the Tory-Labour margin was 22%.

No question Brexit had a big impact although Labour was down everywhere and Delta exit poll showed Corbyn's unpopularity not Brexit reason nonetheless I think in remain areas many held their nose and voted Labour in the hope it would be a hung parliament and there would be a 2nd referendum whereas some leavers who would never dream of voting Tory did so just to get Brexit done although I suspect most of those also disliked Corbyn too, this just was maybe enough to get them to go Tory instead of staying home or voting Brexit party.  Polls showed only 10% of Tory voters disliked Boris Johnson whereas 1/3 of Labour voters disliked Corbyn.