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General Election: Red Wall, Blue Sea

The below is an opinion piece on the General Election from political consultant, Lionel Zetter FPRCA.

In the end, it wasn’t even close. The polls had showed Labour closing the gap in the final few days of the campaign, but there was no surge. Soufflés really don’t rise twice.

The Tories had always wanted this to be an election focused on Brexit, and they largely got their way. But it was not about the principle of Brexit itself. Most people just wanted Brexit out of the headlines and off of the front pages, and also for the normal functioning of government to resume. But perhaps even more important was the issue of faith. If you promise not to raise tuition fees and then treble them, as the Lib Dems did in 2010, then you get hammered. If you stand on a manifesto to respect the result of the Referendum, as both Labour and the Lib Dems did in 2017, and then you constantly seek to block Brexit, then you get hammered.

The fact that much of the discontent with the non-delivery of Brexit was concentrated in the neglected Labour heartlands of the Midlands and the North acted as a double whammy. People in those regions wanted Brexit delivered, but they had originally voted for Brexit because they felt neglected by Westminster, and abandoned by the Labour Party. So like Trump supporters in the ’fly over’ states of the US they refused to change their minds, and they demanded to be heard.

There was also poor targeting on the part of Labour. Both the party machine and the parallel Momentum organisation concentrated their resources on Corbynista candidates, rather than on those who most needed support. This cost them unity, and it cost them votes, and it cost them seats.

But the main reason Labour lost and the Conservatives won was because of their respective leaders. Boris came across as an energetic leader with a strong focus and clear priorities – including, of course, ‘getting Brexit done’. By contrast Jeremy Corbyn came across as old, tired, testy, petulant – and (more importantly) nasty. He may not be an anti-semite himself, but he certainly seems to enjoy the company of people who are. This cost him votes not just in the handful of seats with large Jewish populations, but also amongst the wider electorate, who hate discrimination and loathe bullies.

So the fabled ‘red wall’ has crumbled, and it has been replaced by a ‘blue sea’. And seas are stronger than walls.