There’s a really good reason why 4 out of 10 Tory party members back a merger with Reform UK. I’ve finally finished researching the 2024 General Election results and I’ve discovered some rather interesting facts that might surprise a few people. I’ve provided screenshots of the full report at the bottom of this article and I’m happy to make the complete 2024 spreadsheet report available to any genuine socialists, left wing groups and left wing parties. Just drop me an email at admin@spotlight-newspaper.co.uk
• The Tories gained 1 seat (from Labour) and held 120 seats. Their overall vote share change dropped by (-) 26.63%
• Labour gained 218 seats (36 from the SNP, 182 from the Tories) and held 193 seats, but the overall vote share change was just (+) 1.85%
• The LibDems gained 63 seats (3 from the SNP, 60 from the Tories) and held 8 seats. Their overall vote share change was plus (+) 11.68%
• Reform UK gained 5 seats (from the Tories). Their overall vote share change was a massive (+) 37.7%
• Greens gained 3 seats (2 from the Tories, 1 from Labour) and held 1 seat. The Greens overall vote share change shot up by (+) 23.85%
• The Independents gained 6 seats (1 from the Alliance Party, 5 from Labour). Their combined overall vote share change was (+) 39.38%
• I found a stonking 154 examples of where Reform UK had split the right vote and denied the Tories a seat.
• I found 13 examples of where the Tories split the right vote and denied Reform a seat (because Reform had more votes)
• There were 38 incidents where the Greens split the left vote and denied Labour a seat
• There was also 1 example of where Labour split the left vote and denied the Greens a seat
• I found 4 examples of Independents splitting the left vote and denying Labour a seat
• I found 6 examples where the Greens had split the left vote and denied Independents a seats
• I also checked the status of all the MPs who voted in favour of a ceasefire and discovered that only 62 out of the 71 MPs, who voted for a ceasefire, had retained their seats.
• Incidentally, there were 48 marginal seats with a vote difference of less than 1,000 votes
• Finally, worth noting, the overall turnout was just 60% (down from 67.3% in 2019 and 68.7% in 2017)
What seems clear now is that Labour didn’t win seats by gaining vote share, they won seats because the Tories lost a massive chunk of their vote share to Reform and the LibDems. This is why it was also possible for a number of well organised and well supported Independent and Green candidates to take seats from the Labour Party. In fact, if the left had a more coordinated strategy (where we avoided splitting the left vote), then there could have been at least another 6 Independent gains. Also, imagine the difference it would have made if we had a well organised united left campaign, with coherent messaging and a clear policy agenda that everyone threw their weight behind.
Doing this research gives us a better understanding of what’s really happening at constituency level and I hope that it will help the left to formulate a better strategy moving forward. However, I do believe that we would get a much fuller picture if we also looked at the 2017 election campaign. This would then show how voters respond differently to different messaging. I’m happy to do the work if people are happy to sponsor the research. I’ve set up a GoFundme page – https://gofund.me/0c7482ac – and set a target of £1500, which is a lot less than the base level salary for a researcher (i.e. £1900 for about 3 weeks work). I’m happy to do this because I genuinely believe this is vital research that could really shape our understanding of political dynamics. Every little donation makes a big difference in bringing this work to life folks and all contributions are very much appreciated. Also please consider sharing this campaign with others who might be interested in what we’re trying to do. Thanks so much for your support!
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