Nigel Farage taking over the leadership of the Reform Party will make some differences I had not expected so the table needs a bit of revision.
I see quite a dramatic effect on Conservative seats now with more people voting for Reform and that also allowing the Liberals in to one or other extra seats. I still don't see much of an overall total vote for either Reform or Liberal but I can now see Reform's enhanced promotional reach pushing a few of their candidates over the finishing line whereas before I had expected none.
So we have an even larger majority for Labour now predicted as the joint Liberal and Reform group really hits the Conservative's chances in seats all over the place. They may even struggle to get 100. There is just a chance that Reform really do look more appealing than the Conservatives to all the new people voting Conservative last time, as well as a number of disillusioned supporters who see Nigel Farage as a better opposition than Rishi Sunak. In that instance, where people, reluctantly accepting that Labour will win, are going to be voting for the best opposition, there is that possibility of Reform taking quite a few seats and crossing that barrier which has always prevented the Liberals from making any serious headway.
It is not likely but it is possible and events over the campaign will be what makes voters switch if they're going to. In many ways they will feel they have nothing to lose. The Conservatives appear almost certain not to have a chance of any majority and look likely to lose a lot of good voices for opposition. They have also not exactly endeared themselves to even their core supporters with the extraordinary rise in all things woke, equality, diversity and inclusivity training et al in recent years, making Britain unrecognisable in many ways. So this is an opportunity for those people to vote for someone who will strongly oppose any more advances along those lines and who will be vocal about immigration controls.
These Reform people, assuming they do win some seats, will still be too small in number to make much difference but they're likely to make more noise than the group of chaste and embarrassed Conservatives who do manage to survive. They'll be spending a lot of their time answering reporters' questions about why their party did so poorly, looking for a new leader and not making any positive impression at all for some considerable time. None of the predicted new leaders inspire much enthusiasm either, with talk that even Liz Truss could return, God help them. That's because many of the better candidates will lose their seats and simply not be available any more. Liz Truss is one of the few with a very large majority and maybe sufficient energy to encourage the local constituents to help her retain her seat.
A handful of Reform people and a much reduced Conservative group will still not make much of an opposition, I'm afraid. So people who are making these calculations will need to influence a lot of their friends and somehow make a significant boost to Reform's predicted vote so that people can see a chance that they may, after all, make a decent number of seats - say 30+ - and perhaps that will encourage others who are wobbling to make the move to back Reform.
If the Reform vote appears stuck at low numbers, around the expected 10-14% then they'll be lucky to get more than 1 or 2 seats as not many people will see the point of voting for them. If it does happen to get a lift, however, and there is a prospect of some really useful, albeit mostly still just vocal, opposition to the Labour's tirade of awful government for a decade, then I hope a lot of voters do go for it.
I shall be watching developments closely as that successful opposition is the key from July onwards for Britain.
No comments:
Post a Comment