Gordon Nardell For Cities of London and Westminster
Tactical Voting in Cities of London and Westminster
Eve of poll tactical voting recommendations for Cities of London and Westminster are confusing.
Labour believes it is the only party that can defeat the Tories here.
Why?
It has established a solid base in both recent General and Local government elections. The LibDems have No council seats in either the City of Westminster or the City of London. Labour made this seat marginal in the 2017 general election, just two years ago, when the LibDem vote collapsed compared with 2015 in the wake of their scandalous betrayal of the young by trebling tuition fees when in government with the Tories .
We were only 3,000 votes behind the Tories – and we only need 1,500 to switch their votes to win this seat, out of an electorate of more than 60,000.
- The LibDems would need to poll an extra 14,000 votes to win this seat.
- We know the LibDems did well in the European Parliamentary election – but these are no guide to how people vote in a General Election. The Brexit Party topped the poll in those elections. Yet nobody is predicting a Brexit Party government!
- All the opinion polls since the European elections show LibDems flopping. Across London, last week’s YouGov poll showed that this is a strongly Labour City. Labour is in the lead on 47%, the Tories on 30% and the LibDems have slumped to just 15%.
- The only opinion polls that show the LibDems as serious challengers here are two polls by the same company, Delta, based on a tiny telephone sample of just 500 people. Women and young voters – who tend to be strongly pro-Labour – are under-represented in their samples.
- Crucially, Labour won a real election here just 3 weeks ago, during the general election campaign. Labour held the Aldersgate seat on the Common Council of the City of London (which we previously won unopposed) with 47% of the vote – in an area not known as natural Labour territory. Labour is gaining strong support in every area and every community in this fantastically diverse constituency.
So a vote for the LibDems here risks letting Boris Johnson’s candidate win. Don’t let that happen – to keep the Tories out, vote Labour here today.