Tory Victory June 8th: Can The Lib Dems Spoil It?

It would be to defy realism not to predict that the Tories are on course for a thumping victory in the general election on June 8th. Not only have they been winning the local elections in England, but unusually in Wales and spectacularly in Scotland. There are two distinct reasons. In Scotland the SNP is in the final stages of reducing the Labour Party, which it has replaced as the core socialist party of Scotland, to the sidelines. Labour has become pointless north of the border. The effect on the Conservatives is dramatic. They have become the party of the Union and are opposed to another indy referendum. This is a winning brand unseen in Tory Scotland for more than a generation.

In England and Wales the UKIP vote has collapsed and broken mostly to the Tories, from where those votes originally migrated. In June this will, if repeated, give the Tories an extra three million votes taking them over the fourteen million mark. There is no way Labour, without Scotland and damaged in Wales, can match that. So apart from the voting and counting it is all over for Labour. Or is it? The turnout in the locals is appalling. Over 60% of people entitled to vote don’t. But in the general election at the very least the split is reversed. This is important because if Labour can produce a manifesto that motivates the five million of its voters who stay at home to vote this time, it too will reach fourteen million. It is down to the quality, boldness and relevance of the manifesto and mobilizing its huge membership to tramp the streets and pull out the punters as never before. But it can be done.

And now to the Lib Dems  If you delve deep you find something very surprising. It is this. In the local elections the Tories scored 38% of the vote, which is up a tiny 1.1% on their 2015 general election total. Labour at 27% is down 3%. So far so good. But here is the bombshell. The Lib Dems are up from 7.9% to 18%. Taking the exact same turnout as 2015 and the same total of votes cast, that pushes up the Lib Dem total from less than 2.5 million votes to 5.4 million. In what will be in England a three party race, that can do a lot of damage in apparently safe Tory seats. There will be more analysis of the trend as the campaign develops, but this hints that although the UKIP vote has broken to May, Tory Remainers are moving to the Lib Dems. That could prove devastating if accompanied by tactical voting in a three party race under first past the post.

The upside for the Tories if victorious, is that winning perhaps ten seats in Scotland will secure the Union and end the independence fest of the SNP. The upside for Corbyn if Labour loses big time, is that most of his tormentors will be out of parliament and he will still have the backing of his huge membership. He will then be able to rebuild the Labour Party from the Left, currently a vacant and fertile political space, as the SNP have demonstrated with such effect. Oddly enough he will be in greater danger if Labour nearly wins but misses. Then his enemies, back in parliament, will strike. Again.