From theory, action.

As a precursor I want to be absolutely clear: I consider this mostly a thought game. Labour are not entitled to the working class vote. If they hadn’t opened up space for anti-austerity parties to their left, we would never have seen the Green surge nor SNP taking the scalps that they did. Even in the seats I’ll be highlighting, I think Labour have only themselves to blame for failing to win them, and not any other party that dared to provide more options to voters.

To answer this question, in a very un-scientific fashion, I have looked at two sets of constituencies: those that swung to Conservatives, from any direction, in the 2015 general election, and also Labour’s 106 battleground target seats [x]. I have then referenced the distribution of votes for those constituencies, which is available from the BBC [x].

Finally, I am presenting two sets of results: those that would have swung Labour if all Green votes are added to all Labour votes (which is not how you do electoral analysis, but to demonstrate how small this number is), AND those that would have swung Labour if 30%* of Green supporters had voted for Labour.

The first set: constituencies which would now be Labour instead of Tory if you ignored everything we know about elections and just added Green votes to Labour votes:

Bedford, Lewes, Morley & Outwood, Telford, Twickenham, Weaver Vale. Total: 6.

The second set: constituencies which would now be Labour instead of Tory if 30% of Green voters had gone with Labour instead:*

Brighton Kemptown, Bury North, Croyden Central, Derby North, Gower, and Plymouth Sutton & Devonport. Total: 6.

Even added together these would put the Tories at 325 seats: precisely 50%. But it’s extremely tenuous to say Greens created that much difference in the first set of seats. So lets put to rest the idea that those who dared to vote for an anti-austerity party better aligned to their politics are the splitters that let the Tories take power for a second term.

*Why 30%? According to Lord Ashcroft’s polling [x] that’s the number of Green voters who could be considered traditional Labour voters (response 5). The inference I’m making here is that if a) Greens hadn’t stood a candidate, they may have returned to Labour and made the difference OR if b) Labour had more anti-austerity policy they may have been drawn back to Labour rather than lost to Greens. Again though this is a thought experiment and not a scientific study. There’s a very real possibility that if Greens hadn’t stood a candidate those voters would not have come to the ballot at all and they’d be non-voters. I am being very generous towards Labour by framing this the way that I am. In reality, what’s more likely in these constituencies is less than 30% of traditional Labour voters went Green, as they’d have been more likely to stick to Labour in decisive seats. These are the only seats where there’s a leg to stand on (but not a full set) in claiming that Greens split the Labour vote and let the Tories in. If I had used 20%, which is the percentage of Green voters that voted in 2010 and voted for Labour (response 4), then Bury North would be moved into the first rather than second set. As I said, I’m being both very unscientific and generous towards Labour here.

Before I begin, some figures. These are taken from Wikipedia on 09/05/2015. If they are inaccurate then please contact me with a source and I will correct them. Also if anyone knows a source to show just the results of the Westminster elections in Scotland, to isolate them from the main body, that would be very useful for analysis and I’d much appreciate it.

2010 Elections: Turnout: 29.7 million, 65.1%. Votes: Tory: 10.7 million, 36.1%, 306 seats. Labour:  8.6 million, 29%, 258 seats. Lib Dem: 6.8 million, 23%, 57 seats. UKIP: 0.9 million, 3.1%, 0 seats. BNP: 0.5 million, 1.9%, 0 seats. SNP: 0.5 million, 1.7%, 6 seats. Green: 0.3 million, 0.9%, 1 seat. Note that Green and SNP votes are regionally concentrated, hence the ability to take seats with a lower vote share than UKIP.

2015 Elections: Turnout: 30.7 million, 66.1%. Votes: Tory: 11.3 million, 36.9%, 331 seats. Labour: 9.3 million, 30.4%, 232 seats. UKIP: 3.8 million, 12.6%, 1 seat. Lib Dem: 2.4 million, 7.9%, 8 seats. SNP: 1.4 million, 4.7%, 56 seats. Green: 1.2 million, 3.8%, 1 seat. BNP: 1.7 thousand, 0.0%, 0 seats.

This tool is also useful, and I’ll be using it as a source for some of my observations: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32624405

These figures from Lord Ashcroft polling have also been used: http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/LORD-ASHCROFT-POLLS-Post-vote-poll-summary1.pdf

The purpose of this document is to clarify my thoughts and observations resulting from the UK 2015 elections. Much of this will be hypothetical and lacks the depth of statistical rigour to claim any level of science. Please take much of this in the tone it is intended, as talking points rather than concrete assertions. I also intend to write a sister document, Lessons of the 2015 Election, and this document will hopefully be useful to refer to within that rather than being distracted on tangential observations on the election in general.

Turnout: 0.1 Turnout was predictably high in Tory strongholds. The Tory core voters are usually the demographic most engaged by the system and most motivated to vote. This isn’t a new story. 0.2 Turnout was also high in Scotland. 0.3 Turnout was low in Labour centres. 0.4 What I’d really like to get my hands on is a detailed breakdown of turnout in the swing constituencies that Labour was hoping for but lost to the Tories. I suspect Labour’s significant problem was a failure to activate their voters and/or that the Tories successfully suppressed the Labour vote. I’d expect to see in those constituencies which swung Tory, which Labour were hoping for, that the turnout was not incredibly high.

SNP: 1.1 It is hard to say anything too useful about the Scottish vote without isolated figures. This would also be incredibly useful for being able to break down some details of the national vote. For example, although turnout has gone up since 2015 I’ve heard it reported that most of this was concentrated in the Scottish elections. Being able to account for that would mean we can get a key on how engaged English voters were. 1.2 Most new SNP voters were Labour diaspora. SNP also did a reasonable job activating new voters, but not spectacular. Of the voters that chose SNP, 36% were previous Labour voters and 7% had not voted before. 1.3 The surge in support for the SNP seems mostly focussed on austerity and annoyance at the establishment for how they handled the No campaign in the independence referendum. However, this does not constitute a growth in support for Scottish independence and if the SNP were to push for that too quickly it could be a strategic mistake on their part.

BNP: 2.1 Electoral credibility of UKIP has completely gutted the BNP of support. This could mean one of two things. 2.1.1 Voters don’t want to support an overtly racist party as a protest vote any more, and would much rather put votes into a party that reinforces institutional racism whilst talking about traditional liberal values. 2.1.2 Voters would rather support a racist party that could get seats. 2.2 This ignores the racking up of internal crises within the BNP as well as general slump in credibility which is separate to UKIP’s own growth in credibility, so observations 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 look only at the elections as a static event and don’t consider the dynamic changes between them. Suffice to say, however, that the BNP are pretty much out of it and without a significant change we probably won’t hear from them much anymore.

Lib Dem: 3.1 Lib Dem support has been devastated by their participation within the coalition government, with a 15% reduction in their vote share. Ironically, they’d be doing much better in terms of seats if they’d held fast for a referendum on PR instead of AV, and campaigned well on it. However they’re completely gutted of seats now. 3.2 Most Lib Dem support has remained towards the south, in rural constituencies where Labour has very little electoral viability. However that support is too disperse to return many seats. The south west used to have a number of Lib Dem strongholds, which all went Tory with the exception of Bristol West, where Lib Dem voters split between Labour and Greens (Labour won the seat, with Greens in second). 3.3 The votes lost from the Lib Dem’s 2010 results made up 50% of the Green vote, 24% of the Labour vote, 18% of the UKIP vote, 17% of the SNP vote and 11% of the Tory vote. That’s a massive boost for the Greens, clearly, but when you factor in numbers instead of percentage then Labour support would have been gutted without the collapse of the Lib Dems. 3.4 Lib Dems have been booted out of being a third party in a two-and-a-half party system. In seat numbers the SNP take up that mantle, however their regional restriction means the UK in 2015 is effectively a two party system. It’s unlikely that the Lib Dems are only going to decline however. They will still play a significant role in local elections and can use those bases to rebuild credibility.

UKIP: 4.1 Strong UKIP support in the south fell in Tory seats, in the north mostly in Labour seats. 4.2 They probably picked up the BNP votes. They activated a reasonable number of their a new voter base for this election (7% of their vote). Most of their votes come from traditional Tory voters, 40%, but not a small amount of traditional Labour voters, 25%. I suspect a significant part of this result also represents voters in safe seats for both Tories and Labour registering disgruntlement at what they perceive as insufficient immigration controls and their position on the EU but specifically in such a way that wouldn’t grant their respective greater of two evils a seat in parliament under FPTP. 4.3 UKIP support therefore is likely to remain quite disperse for the foreseeable future and are unlikely to pick up a great deal of seats whilst we remain in FPTP. Whilst they certainly would pick up a lot more seats if we were under PR, I doubt their new voters are dedicated to UKIP and I also doubt they’d sustain such high levels of support should they actually be involved in making policy. UKIP voters are probably not committed to their overall program. Under PR I expect the UKIP vote would fluctuate and remain relatively high but in the long term would probably level out a little lower than it is now.

Labour: 5.1 Labour support has gone up significantly both in number of people voting for them and the percentage of people voting for them. Their seat numbers have gone down significantly. This is an effect of the FPTP system, which has lost them a lot of swing constituencies they were banking on. However, they are still benefitting from FPTP where the smaller parties are losing out. 5.2 The big shock to Labour’s numbers is directly in Scotland at the hands of the SNP. This is for two reasons: 5.2.1 The disenfranchisement that a lot of voters felt towards the Westminster establishment and Labour as the primary representative of that after the handling of the No campaign in the referendum. 5.2.2 Labour’s absolute failure to offer an alternative to the austerity discourse of the Tories which was provided by the SNP. 5.3 I suspect this latter point to be the more significant for the Westminster elections. The effect of the former will be shown in time at the next Holyrood elections, though this will also depend on how long people’s memories are. 5.4 I also suspect 5.2.2 to be a significant factor in why Labour had such a poor showing at winning swing seats in the English constituencies. In this scenario Labour fails to activate their traditional voter base in sufficient numbers. Keeping the Tories out provides inadequate a motivation to bring people to the polls for Labour. This supposition is supported by the Ashcroft polling showing that 24% of Labour voters this year had previously voted for the Lib Dems, a very significant number. Only 64% of Labour voters this year voted for Labour in 2010, while 68% are were traditional Labour voters. This compares to 81% and 70% respectively for the Tories. 5.5 In pushing for the “middle voter” Labour made a number of mistakes: 5.5.1 Tailing Tory discourse on austerity, Labour sets themselves up as austerity-lite. This isn’t especially appealing to those damaged by the cuts, and to the middle voter Labour do not have the credibility to be able to institute such policy when the Tories are already there, doing the same job, and have demonstrated their ruthless capacity to follow through. Voters that consider austerity either never necessary or now no longer necessary made up 83% of the Labour vote, 55% of the Lib Dem vote, 54% of the UKIP vote, 81% of the Green vote, and 89% of the SNP vote. Considering how much support Labour lost to UKIP, Greens and the SNP this could have made a big difference in challenging the Conservatives, both in holding on to voters as well as activating the same fresh voters they did. Labour have to buck their internally dominant right wing to turn this around. 5.5.2 On the SNP question the refusal to work with the SNP in a coalition was intended to reassure the middle voter and scare Scottish pro-union voters into supporting Labour. What actually happened is that anti-austerity voters south of the border turned towards the Greens or weren’t motivated to vote, and Scottish voters became even less favourable towards the Westminster establishment. Ironically the most sensible strategy for Labour to protect the union would’ve been to work with the SNP and declaw their arguments of exclusion, similar to how Cameron managed to obliterate the Lib Dems in the coalition. 5.5.3 Labour’s failure to jettison Miliband after his poor showing for the Euro-elections in 2014 was a big mistake. Miliband was consistently a very unpopular leader who wasn’t able to present himself as strong enough to lead the party competently let alone the country. The Euro-elections should have been a sign that the time was then for a new leader, able to show clearer direction and build a credible profile in the lead up to the 2015 elections.

Green: 6.1 Green support showed a significant increase in this election. 13% of this (the most of any of the parties) came from new voters. The rest were mostly made up of traditional Labour (29%) and Lib Dem (25%) voters, but also a not insignificant portion of former Tory voters. Their votes were also made up by the greatest number of floating voters, as a percentage compared to other parties (13%). 6.2 Green support cannot account for Labour’s shortfall. Most of their strongest support is in rural Tory seats where the Greens can provide a left pull, whilst also addressing the threat to livelihoods and way of life presented by climate change. 6.3 “Green surge” is numerically similar to that of the SNP, but obviously much more dispersed as it isn’t regionally restricted. 6.4 Greens have most stronger voter bases in the rural south where there isn’t a strong Labour presence and the Lib Dems are now mostly absent. They provide for both concerns about the environment, as well as offering a narrative of social liberalism and anti-austerity in places where Tories have mostly been unquestioningly dominant. 6.5 For Greens to start winning seats under FPTP they’ll have to take on Labour constituencies in the cities, where an anti-austerity message can provide a challenge. In these constituencies, the pressures of tactical voting to “keep out the Tories” means that voters are unlikely to switch to Green except for where the Greens are the second party. As far as I’m aware that’s only Bristol West. 6.6 Under PR Green’s greatest opportunity to gain seats would probably be in rural Tory constituencies in the south. This is where their vote is the strongest most generally. These seats rarely have serious Labour contenders. Lib Dems provided role of socially conscious vote choice in counter-position to the Tories. Without Lib Dems, Greens could come to fill that role whilst also offering a narrative on ecological concerns which are a threat to people’s livelihoods and ways of life in such constituencies. 6.7 In either case the Greens will have to build credibility within councils before they’re able to tackle constituencies and expect to win. That said, being able to make back their deposit in a lot of places will help them continue to build their profile without so substantial a financial drain for every seat they stand in.