This is my personal view of how things stand in the run up to the 2019 General Election which is largely a battle between the Conservatives and The Rest.
1 Scotland
It seems unlikely in Scotland that many people are going to change their Brexit minds. But prior to the Brexit referendum, Scotland was almost wholly SNP whereas later in the 2017 general election the SNP lost seats to the main parties. Could it be that some Scots are fed up with calls for another independence referendum? While the Scots may be Remainers, it can not be taken that they are all SNP supporters so there may be room here for SNP losses but only gains to the Conservatives will make a difference.
2 Brexit Party
The appeal of the Brexit party will be to Leavers who are actively seeking a No Deal Brexit, something which opinion says is very little favoured. The Brexit party’s decision not to contest currently Conservative seats as a concession to them seems to indicate that they are not wholly behind themselves which is not a very good endorsement of themselves. I put this down to Nigel Farage who reminds me of Clint Eastwood’s `High Plains Drifter’ -he’s very sure of himself, `paints the town red' and comes and goes to suit himself only.
Considering the Labour seats the Brexit party is contesting, some will be safe and some marginal. Taking the traditional, safe Labour areas of the North East and South Wales, while the Labour party is strongly pro-EU, I ask myself why then did these areas vote to Leave the EU? Could it be they made an ill-informed, ill-considered decision? If the answer is no then shouldn’t they now be voting Conservative (on Brexit issue at least)?
Remember that the First-Past-The- Post election system disproportionally disadvantages small parties and for the previous UKIP (now Brexit party) 10% total vote was worth only 1 seat -wasted votes. But votes for the Brexit party may affect the results in marginal Labour seats but while this could favour the Conservatives it could do the opposite and disadvantage them.
3 The Green Party
The Green party and issues are much to the fore recently, particularly with young voters. However regarding the urgent aspect of carbon dioxide emissions I would say that a vote for the Green party is a wasted vote. Looking online at some of the facts of carbon dioxide emissions for 2017, the emissions attributed to the UK constitute about only 1% of the total and they have been dropping to this level over recent decades. The top 5 emitters are China 27.2%, USA 14.6%, India 6.8%, Russia 4.7% and Japan 3.3%. If you look at emissions per capita, the UK is 69th on the list compared to USA 17th, Russia 24th, Japan 32nd, China 44th, India 139th. Whatever we in the UK do to reduce our emissions is going to make little difference on its own. We can ask them, but can we expect the people of China and India, developing countries, to reduce their emissions? And if you appeal to the USA among the worst offenders, their President denies global warming exists despite the signs, including wild fires in their own affluent California. No, governmentally there is little we can do but individually (and that is what it really boils down to) people in places like the USA can do exactly the same things to combat global warming as individuals in the UK.
4 Re-run of the 2016 Brexit Referendum
This general election is bound to have a strong element of re-running the Brexit referendum. The 2016 referendum was conducted in 381 Voting Areas of which 270 voted to Leave and 129 voted Remain. Estimates have been done on the results by Constituencies and geographically there is a good correlation between these and the Voting Areas. Inspection of voting maps shows the following:
A In Scotland and Greater London the vote was decidedly to Remain. Comments regarding Scotland in my point 1. In Greater London in 2017 the Conservatives lost seats to Labour and Liberal Democrats and so the Conservatives’ job this time round is not only to persuade Remainers to change to Conservative Leavers but to retain existing Conservative seats as well.
B In Northern Ireland there was an East/West Leave/Remain split corresponding generally to Unionist/Nationalist demography.
C Most of the populated areas of Wales voted to Leave apart from in the very South East. Comments regarding South Wales and North East England in my point 2.
D In England, there were several `island’ areas which voted to Remain. Most significantly though there is a large, roughly triangular area in the South of England bounded by Gloucester, Cambridge and Brighton where the results were Remain or borderline Leave and in my opinion it is here that the result of the election will be decided. If you look at this area on a Constituency map for 2017 it is largely Conservative and comprises, electorally speaking, what I call `thinking voters’ (no disrespect to voters elsewhere). Here, some Remainers and Leavers who change their minds to Remain might decide to vote other than Conservative. On the other hand some Labour/LibDem Leavers might vote Conservative. Which will have the bigger effect?
5 Other Election Issues
Looking at the Labour and Conservative manifestos I find a stark contrast. The Conservative manifesto is brief, simple and believable. The Labour manifesto is extended and difficult to take in and I am inclined to believe it is not workable, attractive as some of the policies seem. However, with the increased focus there has been on politics recently, there may be more interest from young, idealistic people in voting Labour or Liberal Democrat which will not help the Conservatives