Westminster Projection - 26 May 2019 Update

Official European Parliament Election Day
Also Michael Portillo's 66th birthday, Jeremy Corbyn's 70th and Stevie Nicks' 71st 🔊  

© Bruce Springsteen, 2002

Jungleland 🔊

So now it is done. Graham Brady tried procrastinating as long as humanly feasible but that can of worms would not kick itself down the road forever and he had to open that infamous 'sealed envelope' from the rule-waiving 1922 Committee. Then came the last days of May 🔊. Aye, I know it's not The Boss but couldn't resist. Few in Scotland will actually regret Theresa May, even Ruth Davidson once she is done with the ritual shedding of crocodile tears. Theresa May never had a clue what Scottish politics are really about or what Scots really expect from their elected representatives. But close to none do among leading English politicians. Jeremy Corbyn most obviously does not and don't even get me started on Boris Johnson. Just remember what he saw fit to publish in The Spectator fifteen years ago, and he did not mean it as a joke.

Back to business as usual, consider that the polls' trend was massively unfavourable for the Conservatives for a long time already and especially over the last two weeks in the last mile to the European Parliament election. What remains to be seen is how May's departure and Boris Johnson becoming PM would affect voting intentions. Survation polled this in their latest poll. 32% of respondents would be more likely to vote Tory with Johnson as PM, 29% less likely, 32% neutral and 7% don't know. So statistically a Johnson Premiership would not be a solid gamechanger. Remarkably (or not) none of the other 19 Tory PM wannabes was tested that way.

The real gamechanger recently is in fact the combination of the noticeable LibDem and Brexit Party surges. the LibDem surge was already apparent in the polls before the EU election became a reality, but has now reached such proportions that even Labour can no longer pretend not to see it. Compared to it the Brexit Party surge is less of an event as FPTP will as usual protect the incumbents. Remember that what really matters is not the number of votes per se but how parties compare to each other, in this case more to the point Conservatives vs Brexit. The Brexit Party would undoubtedly do better than UKIP in 2015 but it would take more than current polls predict to make them the second or even third party. The combination of Tories and Labour both nosediving and LibDems and Brexit both skyrocketing may have changed the voting patterns quite substantially, but you can still count on FPTP to dampen the effects. The longer-term trend of voting intentions since 2017 offers some interesting insights into the major undercurrents over the last two years.

Obviously both Labour and Conservatives suffered from their mishandling of everything Brexit. Making a dug's breakfast of it was the self-inflicted Doomsday Weapon on both and they both managed to detonate it. Earlier this year there was this fleeting moment when Change UK looked like being the next success story as they managed to dent both the Labour and LibDem electorates. Then they slumped back to low single-digit voting intentions as their potential voters realized how shallow they are and switched to the LibDems instead. Change UK might have helped energizing the Europhile electorate but they delivered it on a silver platter to the LibDems and to a lesser extent the Greens, which I basically find hilarious given the high hopes 🔊 they entertained initially. But then maybe a proper manifesto or even a proper logo might have helped or, now that I think of it, avoiding alienating all voters with a 'funny tinge'. Just saying.

Eyes On The Prize 🔊

The various somersaults of voting intentions in recent polls have added a new dimension of uncertainty to any prediction. What one poll says may be totally contradicted by the next as we have the Brexit Party anywhere between 10% and 25% at some point during the last three weeks, the Conservatives anywhere between 19% and 28%, Labour anywhere between 24% and 33% and the LibDems anywhere between 11% and 18%. This opens the door to a multiplicity of different combinations and vastly different seat projections. So the usual caveats about the reliability and volatility of polls apply more than ever. Anyway the rolling average is still the best tool we have, other than a virgin black goat's entrails, and here is what it says right now, based on the six most recent GE polls fielded between 14 and 22 May. Super-sample size is 18,336 with a theoretical 0.7% margin of error.

Pollsters now routinely crosstab the current voting intentions and the 2017 GE vote. The most recent such data clearly show the magnitude of the Conservatives' drive to mass suicide and also the ripple effect of the Europhile realignment on Labour. Tories losing nearly half their 2017 votes and Labour a third highlights how many voters have lost confidence in them both because of their Brexit shenanigans. Data here come from the last Panelbase Scotland-only poll for the SNP and from this week's GB-wide polls for the other parties. What the GB-wide data fail to show is the actual magnitude of transfers from other parties to the SNP, which are quite impressive too (4% of 2017 Conservatives, 19% of 2017 Labour and 11% of 2017 LibDems according to Panelbase's Scotland-only crosstabs).

With the SNP having the most faithful electorate of all and benefiting from significant shifts from other parties, Scotland once again looks like the island of cool sanity amidst the current Very English Game of Throes. The Brexit Party has made some inroads here in recent GE polling but part of it is certainly cross-pollination from EU polls fielded over the same timeframe, and anyway they switched only disgruntled Tory and Labour voters. The main trend still remains people rallying around the SNP and strengthening their position as the dominant party in Scotland and the best defenders of Scotland's interests. So much again for power-weariness and out-of-touchiness. Data for the English regions show very different patterns with the once dominant parties Doon Sooth both in pretty precarious positions. Bear in mind that at the 2017 GE Tories bagged a majority of the popular vote in the East Midlands, East Anglia, South East, South West and almost got it in the West Midlands. While Labour bagged a majority in London, North East, North West and got almost there in Yorkshire-Humber. So you can easily see the amount of self-inflicted damage for both in what used to be solid heartlands.

Interestingly there is also a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to tectonic shift in Northern Ireland too: the end of the DUP-Sinn Féin 2017 duopoly on Westminster representation probably in retaliation to the total breakdown of the power-sharing agreement, and a return to a 2015ish or 2010ish situation. The few Northern Ireland polls we have are not necessarily reliable but an overall assessment of the situation, including local elections results, points to SDLP, UUP and possibly the Alliance Party returning to Westminster at the next GE.

Roll Of The Dice 🔊

As might be expected, a confused electorate would elect a very divided House, again and again delivering a hung Parliament. Labour would probably not gamble a minority government on a 'socialist' Queen's Speech as odds are it would be voted down. So Jeremy Corbyn's first obvious option is talking to the next LibDem leader (Jo Swinson anyone?) and negotiate a coalition that would have a twelve-seat majority (328-316 with SDLP part of it and Sinn Féin sitting out). The price to pay for a deal would not be a confirmatory EU referendum as the next GE, however snap it is, has fuck all chance to happen before Brexit Day. This week departing Vince Cable has described his own party as 'green and social democratic' without the slightest hint of irony, so there may be room for agreement after all, or wouldn't there? Scrap tuition fees, anyone? 

This projection also exemplifies the 'regulating' effect of FPTP on the emergence of new parties. But the breakdown of projected seats by nation and region also shows some cases where FPTP can help the resurgence of an old party who regains ground lost in previous elections. For example the LibDems would get an unprecedented 17 seats in the South West, more than they currently have in the whole UK, while the Brexit Party would get none on roughly the same predicted share of the vote there. One of the LibDems' most notable successes would be Cornwall where they would gain back four out of six seats, including unseating former Minister of State Sarah Newton, in a region that once was one of their strongholds before turning 100% Tory in 2015 and 2017. The LibDems would also stage an unexpected spectacular comeback in the South East, bagging more seats there than they did in 2010 before the Coalition fiasco sent them down the dark pit of oblivion. Well, almost.

Incidentally the comic relief story of the week, which is unlikely to have much influence on the next GE as it will probably flop long before that, comes from Chuka Umunna seriously considering an Alliance-like alliance with the LibDems just days after the Chukers rejected an United Remain Front at the EU election and then Heidi Allen outchuking Chuka with a proposal for a formal merger. Looks like Chuka and Heidi believe in the urban legend that says the SDP-Liberal Alliance was a success story and did tremendously well at the 1983 GE, rising from 11 seats to 23. Too bad this is just a myth that is perpetuated only because people get their numbers wrong. At dissolution in 1983 the Alliance did not have 11 seats but 43 (30 SDP, 13 Liberals) thanks to defections and by-elections since 1979. So they actually did not double their representation but lost half of it. Guess Chuka should also look up the details (like on my blog eleven weeks ago) and realize that the SDP went down from 30 to 6 seats while the Liberals went up from 13 to 17. Big Dug Eats Wee Dug. Always.

My Best Was Never Good Enough 🔊

Under current projections 130 seats would change hands, the highest number since 1997 and the third highest since 1945. But both 1945 and 1997 were wave elections that signalled a major realignment in British politics while the next GE would be a different beast altogether. What we can expect now is not a decisive swing from one of the major parties to the other but an increased fragmentation of the people's representation. As the detail of gains and losses shows only the Liberal Democrats would come out of the fight as undisputed winners and the most credible kingmakers. The results would be a mixed bag for the SNP as they would strongly strengthen their position as the dominant player in Scotland, but lose third-party status to the LibDems with all the perks that go with it. Bugger.

The most Portilloish moments would obviously be Brandon Lewis, Chair of the Conservative Party, and John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, both losing their seats to the Brexit Party. While Lewis' fate appears to be sealed, Bercow might still save his seat if all parties actually sit this one out, unlike Greens did in 2015 and 2017, and also make sure none of their own stand as independents, but it would still be a close call. Other notable losses would include arch-macho reactionary Philip Davies in Shipley, and Oliver Letwin in the historically safe Conservative seat of West Dorset where the Liberal Democrats would overturn a 19k Tory majority. The Conservatives would surely also be miffed at losing such supposedly safe seats as Isle of Wight or Witney (David Cameron's old seat), but the two-pronged assault by the Brexit Party and the LibDems adds an unexpected layer of uncertainty and puts even safe seats in jeopardy. More on this later.

The Conservative front bench would also be taking major blows with 32 MPs on the government payroll projected to be unseated. Amber Rudd would still be the only Cabinet Minister going down, and now the Solicitor General for England and Wales, eight Ministers of State, ten Junior Ministers, five Parliamentary Private Secretaries, four Whips, the Tory Party Chair and two Vice-Chairs would follow her to the woodchipper. There is some irony in Theresa May's last reshuffle as both the former Solicitor General Robert Buckland, now a Minister of State, and the newly appointed Solicitor General Lucy Frazer would lose their seats. Labour wouldn't be totally spared either as five members of the Shadow Cabinet would lose their seats, including Shadow Secretary of State Sarah Champion.

© Bruce Springsteen, 2012

Tougher Than The Rest 🔊

The recent Brexit Party surge would reshuffle the cartography of marginal seats to an extent the LibDem surge never achieved over the last few months. An exceptionally high 94 seats would now qualify as marginals, including 13 in Wales and 67 in England outside London. Interestingly the situation would be less volatile than before in Scotland with only four marginals instead of twenty after the 2017 GE. But Wales would look like an accident waiting to happen with a third of the seats qualifying as marginals and a Brexit Party wave threatening even supposedly safe Labour seats. Northern Ireland too would become a wee smitch less predictable with the return of a four-player or even five-player competition. Then again the true battleground would be England with the Brexit Party destabilizing both the Southern Little England Tory heartlands and the Northern Powerhouse Labour heartlands.

The Brexit Party would be the runner-up in 31 of the new marginals and it does not take that much of a leap of faith 🔊 to see all of them going to the Brexit Party and then some. Actually some recent polls predicted just this kind of configuration and worse. Just figure out the Brexit Party rising by another 4% to 23% while Labour and the Conservatives both slump by another 2% to 25% and 22% respectively, which is by no means an impossible or even implausible situation, and the Brexiters grab 100+ seats. You've been warned, though the warning actually extends to England and Wales only. For Now.

Land Of Hope And Dreams 🔊

The recent Brexit Party and LibDem surges mean that neither Labour nor the Conservatives can realistically set their sights on an outright majority anymore. In fact the reallocation of marginals after factoring in the margin of error delivers some counter-intuitive results. FPTP can behave in paradoxical ways when handling the kind of new configuration we have here: the Brexit Party doing strongly in a significant number of both Tory-leaning and Labour-leaning marginals. To put it as clearly as possible, if Labour overperforms the polls, the Brexit Party would lose fewer Brexit-Labour marginals than they would gain Conservative-Brexit marginals. Ir works the other way round, or more precisely as a mirror image, if Labour underperform, and this time compounded by massive losses from Labour to the Brexit Party in Wales.

If Conservatives overperform we get a deadlock with Conservatives as the first party but unable to form a viable government coalition even with support from the LibDems. And in this case the only option left for Labour would be a Lab-Lib-SNP coalition, which won't happen for so many reasons it would take another article to list them all. Unless of course PM Corbyn thinks radically outside the box, grants a Section 30 Order hoping IndyRef2 fails and the 'once in a generation' thing becomes 'once in a lifetime' as it is probably what it would take the SNP to recover from such a blow. Then again it won't happen and Corbyn would more probably gamble on a confirmatory snap GE to sort out the mess, like Wilson did in 1974

At the other end of the range of possible futures, Labour just slightly overperforming would open the door to a more solid Lab-Lib coalition. Solid of course only as long as you believe LibDems can be trusted with keeping their end of any bargain, which a totally different story.

Your Own Worst Enemy 🔊

There is a lot to be said about the very concept of 'safe seats'. First of all of course that it can be highly volatile and deceptive, if you just remember how many safe seats Labour held in Scotland just five years ago, which looks like an eternity ago now. Right now current polling strongly hints that the notion that any seat can be considered safe for any length of time is a thing of the past with the Brexit Party reshuffling the deck in a dramatic way. First let's compare the Conservative seats' rating on the SLLM scale after the 2017 GE and how they are rated now. The chart is rescaled to 100% regardless of the number of seats in each category for easier reading.

Out of 244 supposedly safe Conservative seats, 36 are now predicted to switch to another party and only 10 would still meet either of the two 'safe seat' criteria: an outright majority and/or a 25% and above lead. And the damage is even worse in the other categories. Moving on to Labour now, they would lose only 9 of their 222 reportedly safe seats from the 2017 election. Which does not mean they should feel safer overall as only 57 of their predicted seats would still meet the criteria. Of course both parties can only blame themselves as they jointly opened the can of worms that led to the Brexit Party emerging as a credible alternative for hardline Leavers, and the Liberal Democrats and the SNP as the major rallying points for the true Europhiles. And there is no end in sight and no truly predictable outcome for the realignment we see happening right under our eyes as Brexit and its many fallouts will be the centrepiece of British politics for at least another decade, if not another generation.

Now you might wonder how this can happen but it is actually rather easy to figure out how a supposedly safe seat can turn into an embarrassing liability. Let's say the Tories held the seat on 56% of the vote in 2017 with Labour bagging 28%, which is something you will undoubtedly find in the real world and meets both 'safe seat' criteria. Then factor in the Brexit Party tsunaming into the constituency like a demented pack of hellhounds and managing to snatch away half the Tory vote, which might sound far-fetched but can (and possibly will) happen in many a Little England backwater if polls are to be believed. Then you are left with a perfect three-way marginal with Labour possibly just a rabbit's ear away from an unlikely gain. If you really believe it's just a pipe dream just look at what current polls predict for the Tory heartlands Deep Doon Sooth and think it through.

Darkness On The Edge Of Town 🔊

Three days already since the European Parliament election has come and gone, and still a few hours before we know what happened. There is this pesky European Union rule that says no official results can be released until the last vote in the last country has been cast. Which makes the deadline today at 11pm Central European Time, or 10pm BBC time if I get the time-zones right. Then for the next EU election after Brexit we won't have to bother with those shitey EU rules. Uh…. wait… wait…. seriously? Naw just kidding though I wouldn't put is past some of the batshit-Brexiteers to think just that. Final official results will not even be available before tomorrow noon-drams time in Scotland as the Western Isles are a work-free zone on Sabbath. Then everybody's worst nightmare except Boris Johnson's comes true.

There is little doubt the New Model Blackshirts will come out as the first party in the Divided Kingdom. Soon Nigel Farage, the poundshop Oswald Mosley with a German passport who fancies himself as Oliver Cromwell 2.0, will barge in on BBC claiming Britain now has the inalienable right to deal with the rest of the world on WTO rules only. And at that point the rest of the world will palmface in bewildered disbelief and switch to a Benny Hill DVD because it conveys a better image of the UK they had come to love and respect before it turned itself into daily laughing stock. Only Mauritania will send heartfelt greetings to Nigel as they would be the UK's sole trading partner in the WTO-only dreamworld.

The predicted disaster will be totally on the Three Riders of the Brexitocalypse. The British MSM for shamelessly and desperately sucking up to Nigel Farage for months because he always steals the show and delivers juicy soundbites. Theresa May for making kicking the can down the road the only clear guideline of a failed policy. Jeremy Corbyn for failing to acknowledge that channelling his Inner Brexiter was never a proof of true leadership. Then some outside the Brexitocracy Bubble are not without flaws either. Caroline Lucas switched to Anglo-centrism in her desperate quest for an United Stop Brexit Front. And don't even get me started (again) on Change UK who unwaveringly support a People's Vote except when it comes to seeking a fresh mandate through Commons by-elections, and couldn't even be bothered to get themselves a proper logo, let alone a proper manifesto.

To get the bigger picture, we had a sudden frenzy of polling in the last mile before the election with no fewer than eight polls published in three days, 20 to 22 May, which was borderline TMI even for completist anoraks. Here are the voting intentions anyway, on the weighted average of the whole batch of eight, and the breakdown by nation/region. The weighted average is a GB-only result as the main pollsters do not include Northern Ireland which has been polled twice by a Belfast-based firm. The most recent Scotland-only, Wales-only and London-only polls are also included in their respective projected voting intentions.

The breakdown by electoral region shows how deep Farage's New Model Blackshirts have penetrated into both Labour and Conservative traditional territory. Add to that the remarkable and recent surges of both Liberal Democrats and Greens, even in regions where you would least expect them to do well, and you have the roadmap for a joint disaster for the two major English parties. The overall seat projection and its breakdown by electoral region only confirm this, with a three-pronged assault from left, center and right squeezing most of juice out of Labour and Conservatives alike. Tories were expecting it and must be psychologically prepared for it, but Labour are surely not as they obviously expected their two-faced approach to Brexit would help them. But it didn't and the projected results once more prove that you can't have it both ways. The only reward you get from being two-faced is a mighty slap with a wet dead fish on all four cheeks.

For the record other seat projections published elsewhere might somewhat differ from mine, as my overall seat projection is the sum of the individual seat projections for each of the twelve electoral regions. I strongly suspect that many others who publish seat projections do not do it this way, which is the right way, but instead allocate seats globally as if we had just one big constituency. I have this hunch because a national projection, instead of the sum of regional ones, is the only way you can steadily find UKIP bagging any seats at all and the SNP on only two seats.

Now if anyone deserves a special mention in the light of this campaign and the projected results, obviously it is Change UK, as never in living memory was such abject humiliation so neatly snatched from the dropping jaws of outstanding success. If the main goal from the start was to embarrass Labour by driving centrist Europhile voters away from them, it obviously worked beyond anyone's wildest expectations. But what Change UK so masterfully achieved was not to channel all these votes to themselves but to the Liberal Democrats who come a pig's ear's hair away from becoming the second party at this election, and also to the Greens who not so long ago were doomed to lose all their MEPs and are now projected to almost double their number, while Change UK will bag exactly zero seats. Awesome.

Then what did polling say about Scotland? Based on the weighted average of the Scottish subsamples of the last two YouGov megapolls (619 and 796 Scottish respondents respectively) and the latest Scotland-only poll from Panelbase (1,021 respondents), voting intentions still look quite good for the SNP who would also benefit from a fragmented Unionist vote.

The seat projection based on these voting intentions looks pretty straightforward if you trust the math: three SNP MEPs, one Brexit Party, one Labour and one Liberal Democrat. But there is more than meets they eye at a casual glance. The sixth Scottish seat looks like a free-for-all with four lists finishing within les than 1% of all votes cast. So I certainly don't rule out a fourth SNP MEP. Obviously I won't rule out a second Brexit Party MEP or a Conservative one either. All things considered it looks pretty good for Alyn Smith, Christian Allard and Aileen McLeod and I venture even odds on Margaret Ferrier bagging a fourth seat for the SNP as she is barely 3k votes away in a quite crowded field.

Right now all we can do is sit back and relax, keeping fingers crossed. I just hope the polls will be about right, especially the Scottish ones, and that the actual seat allocation will come close to my final projection. Just so I don't have to roll back too much of my comments when doing the post-mortem. Especially miffing would be SNP missing the fourth seat by only a handful, or the Change UK useful idiots managing to bag even one lonely seat. On second thoughts the worst shocker would be the first 31 Scottish Councils having the SNP miss the fourth seat by 1,000 votes and Na h-Eileanan an Iar switching that to SNP bagging it by 1,000 at lunchtime tomorrow; Definitely bad for the faint of heart. Just a few more hours to wait then.

And the Very British GE Circus will go on anyway so stay tuned for further broadcasts

Time to live, time to lie, time to laugh, time to die
Take it easy Baby, take it as it comes
Time to walk, time to run, time to aim your arrows at the sun

© Bruce Springsteen, 1995