Please note that this may be updated based on trends in national support for the brexit and conservative party. The main message here is if in doubt vote conservative. In 95%+ of cases it is probably better to vote conservative. However this article is about the handful of exceptions to this rule.
Firstly let's go over what type of seats they are. The seats where the brexit party has a chance of being more viable than the conservative party must fulfill all of the following criteria: be strongly euroskeptic (typically at least 65% Leave), be a traditional Labour heartland, ideologically very socially conservative with strong patriotic sentiment, very strong distrust of the conservative party and very few natural conservative voters. I should enphasise that not all traditional Labour, euroskeptic constituencies will be on this list. In most cases the Conservative party is still likely to be a better choice but these are the exceptions. I have come up with a TBP/CON tactical voting metric I will simply refer to the tactical voting score. A tactical voting score above 1 means it makes more sense to vote for the brexit party, whilst a vote below 1 means it makes sense to vote for the conservative party. Things may change based on the national share of the vote. However as it stands these are the seats that have a score above one:
Rotherham: 2.6
Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough: 2.3
Barnsley Central: 2.1
Barnsley East: 2.1
Rhondda: 2.1
Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney: 1.8
Knowsley: 1.8
Kingston Upon Hull East: 1.7
Hartlepool: 1.6
Blaenau Gwent: 1.5
South Shields: 1.0
Kingston Upon Hull North: 1.0
IMPORTANT NOTE: These are NOT the constituencies the brexit party is most likely to win, many on these list are actually difficult to win. These are simply the constituencies where a brexit tactical voter should choose the brexit party over the conservative party. There are many other constituencies that the brexit party could be more likely to win but crucially doing so would require attacking the conservative vote base and in doing so would raise the chance of a Remain MP being elected. If there is to be no conservative/brexit party alliance then its key the brexit party vote hurts the Remain side (Labour/Lib dems/e.c.t.).
In Blackburn the people would not, in a million years, elect Conservatives. The only chance of getting Labour out in this town is to vote Brexit Party. Brexit Party and Conservatives should talk to each other to avoid an accidental Labour win.
ReplyDeleteI do expect Blackburn to be a Labour Hold but people are still more willing, in blackburn, to vote for the conservative party than a party similar to the brexit party. Blackburn has a fairly low tactical voting score which implies voting Conservative is more likely to be effective than voting for the brexit party.
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