UK General Election 2019 - Election Day and Results Thread

[Blair]

Indulgent Post.

I knocked on about 300 Labour Doors at this election; and helped with a Labour campaign for 5 weeks.

10-20% of previously labour voters said in a safe Labour seat said they weren't voting Labour because of Corbyn.

Over 100 odd emails saying they would vote for our candidate but not Corbyn because of Brexit, anti-semitism, nationalisation etc etc. I know that this was widespread in nearly every other CLP; and I can only image it was more widespread in the North and Midlands.

There is spin from JC team that it's about Brexit and Keir Starmer is to blame; sure Brexit was the vehicle that crashed through the wall, but the wall was mouldy, weak and crumbling because of a whole host of reasons.

A manifesto that was not costed, a perception we were at best willing to ignore antisemitism (and at worst that we were institutionally antisemitic) and a leader who people did not want as Prime Minister.

We all knew that Corbyn was perceived as an awful leader; especially in our leave seats. This is a huge historic loss for the Labour Party, and the narrow minded sect which has lead our party since 2015, and which has controlled the machine since 2018 is responsible.

Their manifesto, their leader, their strategy. Their loss.

[Blair]

The liberal democrats have really hurt Labour in this election.

Serious questions need to asked to why they carried on standing candidates

At the count in Kensington, the voters were horrified (pro-remain) that they have a die-hard leaver representing them because the liberal democrats refused to stand down.

In High Peak, the liberal democrat was sarcastically clapped for letting the Tory in. Even in Blyth Valley (first Tory gain) the Green party were put in the awkward position of trying to explain what the benefit is of splitting the left vote for the tory to win?  

Its totally pointless for the Green Party and Liberal democrats to say that the political system is rotten or broken. You know the rules before the election and if you have zero chance of running and its a swing district then questions need to be asked why are you running in the first place?

There aren't any 'voters' at a count in an election-it's only approved party members allowed in who are not at all representative of anything.

They stood because for a lot of people they did not want to vote Labour. They're a political party that is over 100 years old, and people deserve the right to vote Liberal Democrat in Tory-Marginals, in the same way people deserve a right to vote Labour in Lib Dem-Tory Marginals.

We don't have swing districts in the UK either.

[Blair]

We're not in America. Stop comparing this to the democrats.

[Blair]

We're not in America. Stop comparing this to the democrats.

Sure.  But places like Putney and Canterbury going to LAB while the North shifting to CON looks a awful like VA and CO going to Dems while WI PA and MI moving toward GOP.

Michigan and Pennsylvania have a huge African-American community... something British seats like Blyth Valley & Sedgefield certainly don't.

These are seats that have virtually never elected the Conservatives to even run bin collections in the local councils, let alone represent them in Parliament, whilst those states have willing voted republican congressman/governors and senators multiple times in the last 20 years.
 
The 'North' is not shifting the Tories- ex industrial towns and ex-mining villages have seen the Labour vote crash, whilst the Tories have got stronger. There are still plenty of cities in the North that elect Labour MPs.

We're not in America. Stop comparing this to the democrats.

Sure.  But places like Putney and Canterbury going to LAB while the North shifting to CON looks a awful like VA and CO going to Dems while WI PA and MI moving toward GOP.

But the Northwest and Northeast of England actually have had decades of socialist tradition...they didn't fail to vote for Corbyn's Labour Party purely out of ideology. A left-wing leader with a clear opinion on Brexit and with a clear agenda to combat and expel anti-semitic/hateful members of the party would have done well, I think. It's just that Corbyn came across as so weak on so many issues except fighting austerity, which is an issue that voters had already made their minds up on.

So you think if LAB were led by, say, Ed Millband, the LAB loses up North would have been minor?   

Yes- see 2015 as an example of where northern marginals were lost; but the rock solid Labour seats held since the 1980s didn't fall through.

[Blair]

We're not in America. Stop comparing this to the democrats.

Sure.  But places like Putney and Canterbury going to LAB while the North shifting to CON looks a awful like VA and CO going to Dems while WI PA and MI moving toward GOP.

But the Northwest and Northeast of England actually have had decades of socialist tradition...they didn't fail to vote for Corbyn's Labour Party purely out of ideology. A left-wing leader with a clear opinion on Brexit and with a clear agenda to combat and expel anti-semitic/hateful members of the party would have done well, I think. It's just that Corbyn came across as so weak on so many issues except fighting austerity, which is an issue that voters had already made their minds up on.

I don't buy that at all. Corbyn's "antisemitism" turned out voters and many of them voted CON because they're known antiracist party. Not lib dems, not green, but for torries, yeah right. LD result shows how much this election was about Corbyn and how much about Brexit. I mean it's pretty clear that people wanted to leave and only Cons had a real message to get that done. Every other take is just more anti Corbyn's bias.

There's a reason why Bury North & Golders Green voted for the Conservatives- because the Jewish community had real fears about what Prime Minister Corbyn would mean. The one thing that cut through this election was Ian Austin saying it really is about who you would rather have as PM- if you vote Green or Lib Dem you're giving up that chance to stop Corbyn.

[Blair]

We're not in America. Stop comparing this to the democrats.

Sure.  But places like Putney and Canterbury going to LAB while the North shifting to CON looks a awful like VA and CO going to Dems while WI PA and MI moving toward GOP.

But the Northwest and Northeast of England actually have had decades of socialist tradition...they didn't fail to vote for Corbyn's Labour Party purely out of ideology. A left-wing leader with a clear opinion on Brexit and with a clear agenda to combat and expel anti-semitic/hateful members of the party would have done well, I think. It's just that Corbyn came across as so weak on so many issues except fighting austerity, which is an issue that voters had already made their minds up on.

Are you suggesting that Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania do not have strong socialist traditions?

Something they share with the north of England is that those socialist traditions were rooted in a strong labor movement, which has all but disappeared along with those jobs, leaving the people there susceptible to nationalist and racist sentiment.

But this doesn't make sense when you remember that the strong Labour movement & heavy industry  left in the 1980s- but these seats were still voting strongly for Labour until 2015.

These seats have never elected Tories. Those states have a long history of electing republicans at all levels.

[Blair]

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.

Yes. I know it cost Labour votes because it was mentioned on the doorstep from people who had voted Labour before.

It was never about his view on BDS or settlements; but rather about his comments (saying a mural of Jewish bankers playing monopoly over corpses was fine) his associations with Hamas (who he called his friends) and the unwillingness of the party to suspend individuals who made grossly antisemitic comments. 

[Blair]

Also center left Ed Miliband hang on to his seat by a slimmest of margins, going down 22% since last election and he only kept his seat because of CON/BREXIT PARTY non-tactical voting

Because people don't vote for their local MPs they vote based on the national party

[Blair]

and if people do vote for a local person it is not because they're 'centre left' (a term most voters don't know) but because they're local, good at replying to emails and good at sorting out local problems.