The Brexit Party were heavy favourites to win the by-election and I fully expected them to do so. The Labour vote dropped fairly significantly, so it was as much the Tory and Brexit Party vote split that was the real surprise here. The Tory vote held up much better than was expected considering its complete collapse in the EU election vote. If that hadn't happened, the Brexit Party would've have won handily.

Clearly demographics factor in, but it's important to offer other clear and pertinent realities rather than the usual Dulux Colour Chart analysis that haunts the board and writes off or shows disinterest in anything beyond that. I for one expected this vote to replicate the European election vote and be yet another referendum proxy and for there to be a wipe out of both main parties. That didn't happen and they both remained substantial levels of support in comparison to that vote. 61% voted leave in the area. It was a two horse race and many thousands of those voters threw this by election away by voting for a party that clearly wasn't going to win. It may be that some of those cared more about local issues, but many more I expect, just didn't think tactically enough.

This may well replicate on a larger scale, so I think a General Election is firmly off the cards. Post Brexit, or post whatever comes next, there may be yet another shakeup to how people vote, so we're all flying blind in that regard! Corbyn has a non stance and is very unpopular, so depends on the Lib Dem and Brexit Party support in areas and how that impacts the vote share and as consequence winner.

Edited by dollardays (07 Jun 2019 9.15pm)

You're right really, he is a consequence of those factors. The feel of too much change too fast thrust upon communities is a valid concern. And with austerity, a hopelessness sets in that inevitably never gets within a country mile of impacting those telling us how essential tightening the purse strings is.

Edited by dollardays (07 Jun 2019 8.59pm)

This.
Farage would never be a name had it not been for the 'politics' of others. Something continually ignored by the 'High and Mighty' among us.

I realised that voting was pointless around 25yrs or so ago. 25yrs well spent.

Buy Litecoin.

A couple of family members never vote. I, on the other hand, appear to have voted for almost every party at one time or another over the decades. For all it's amounted to, I may as well take your approach in future. The exception being if I feel I can push the needle on a single issue this way or that. Most party manifestos end up in the political bin anyway, so taking party policies as a whole as face value only ever ends in disappointment.

George definitely has that in him....though perhaps he'd be better off joining the pussy cat dolls.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Dead lazy, but someone once said that if voting mattered then we'd never have been given the right.
Sadly history shows this to be true.
We're 'given' a vote that ultimately doesn't matter. It's laughable tbh that people take this s*** seriously.

Oh well

Buy Litecoin.