03 August 2019

Boris doesn't necessarily need a pact with the Brexit party

Following the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election there's a lot of comment about how Boris Johnson needs to have a pact with the Brexit party.

However, he's said that there's no chance of this and I expect the reason is that he and his strategists realise that it probably won't be necessary.

The opinion polls have changed markedly from the last election where the Tories and Labour got over 84% of the vote between them.

Under Theresa May we saw the birth of the Brexit party and the resurgence of the Lib Dems.

The Brexit party largely took votes from the Tories and the Lib Dems from Labour. Some polls were showing the four largest parties each polling in the region of 20% - 25%.

Since then, we've had a Boris bounce and as a result, Electoral Calculus shows the following vote share and seats. The Tories end up 15 seats short of a majority:

Party Percentage Seats
Conservative 29.7 311
Labour 25.4 224
Lib Dem 18.2 43
Brexit 14.6 0
Green 5.1 1
UKIP 0.8 0

However, because of the vagaries of First Past the Post, the Tories only need to rise a couple of percentage points for them to end up with a majority of 12. Note I've increased the share of both the  Brexit party and the Lib Dems compared with the figures above:

PartyPercentageSeats
Conservative32331
Labour25210
Lib Dem2046
Brexit177
Green51
UKIP10

If Boris could take just 3% extra from the Brexit party, he ends up with a majority of 82 and the Brexit party are wiped out in terms of seats:

PartyPercentageSeats
Conservative35366
Labour25187
Lib Dem2041
Brexit140
Green51
UKIP10

I imagine the strategy is, therefore, to do enough to take a few points from the Brexit party in order to reach that magic 35% figure and hope that the Lib Dems and Labour continue to split the broadly Remain vote such that Labour stay on 25%.

Some recent polls are already showing the Tories on 35%. Boris just needs to firm up that figure and hope that Labour and the Lib Dems continue to split their 45%. The Brexit party can keep their 14% with no need for any pact.

Ironically, the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election probably served to make some Brexit party voters think twice about voting for them in a general election for fear of handing the result to a Remain party.

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