UK: Labour gains in leave areas may cut swing needed for overall majority

Voters are switching from the Tories to Labour in the most pro-leave parts of the country in such numbers that Keir Starmer may need a far lower overall swing from the Conservatives to win a parliamentary majority than was previously believed, election analysts have claimed.

In their analysis of this month’s local elections, professors Robert Ford of Manchester University and John Curtice of Strathclyde University both noted that the bigger the 2016 vote was for leave in an area, the higher the swing was to Labour.

Party strategists have also been encouraged by the way it has been winning back voters in the most pro-leave parts of the country.

Labour sources said results of the recent elections showed that in the 10% of new parliamentary constituencies with the highest leave votes, the council election swing from Tory to Labour from 2021 to 2024 had been 11.3%. In the rest of the country the swing had been 6.5%. They cited Thurrock, where Labour took control of the council on 2 May, which had the fourth highest leave share in the country in 2016 (72.3%), and other one-time leave strongholds such as Cannock Chase, Staffordshire (68.9%), where it also took charge of the council, as examples.





https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/11/labour-gains-leave-brexit-swing-majority-tories-starmer-victory-election