" Red Wall " seats ....

[AndrewJB]

Technically they could. Tory voters could also have switched (or not voted).

I think there have been surveys of where voters went, probably lord Ashcroft I'd guess, but I can't remember what they showed.

My guess would be that labour did lose plenty of votes to the Tories but it was a long term process with UKIP as a stepping stone.

Technically, yes, but very unlikely to be millions as was claimed. Which isn’t to say several hundred thousand - if it’s as high as that - doesn’t represent major blow to the party, because the outcome is there for all to see.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

If the Tory vote only went up by a few hundred thousand, then millions of Labour voters couldn’t have switched.

They could've switched to different parties.

Still, they lost a lot more votes then you're claiming and that enabled the Tories to record a crushing victory.

Just imagine what the outcome could've been if Labour had managed to behave like grown ups.

[AndrewJB]

They could've switched to different parties.

Still, they lost a lot more votes then you're claiming and that enabled the Tories to record a crushing victory.

Just imagine what the outcome could've been if Labour had managed to behave like grown ups.

All I objected to was your big over exaggeration of claiming millions of Labour voters switched to the Tories.

Another probable reason for the drop in Labour’s vote is because we were told the party is institutionally anti-Semitic (something that seems to have gone off the radar, as though magically fixed).

Anyone wanting to understand the issue better could do worse than read this:

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/ ... edir_esc=y

Which I’m told pulls no punches.

[aggi]

Some from the Lord Ashcroft polls here:



https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/12/h ... vote-poll/

[tiger76]

All I objected to was your big over exaggeration of claiming millions of Labour voters switched to the Tories.

Another probable reason for the drop in Labour’s vote is because we were told the party is institutionally anti-Semitic (something that seems to have gone off the radar, as though magically fixed).

Anyone wanting to understand the issue better could do worse than read this:

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/ ... edir_esc=y

Which I’m told pulls no punches.

I suspect many Labour voters simply say at home last year, some may have switched to the Tories, mainly over brexit, but there's many that won't make that leap for historical reasons.

Whether Labour is institutionally anti-Semitic can be debated at length, but they clearly have a minority of elected representatives that hold questionable views in most reasonable people's minds.

https://labourlist.org/2020/08/labour-c ... semitism/

https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/20 ... om-labour/

https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/202 ... semitism/

Equally the public inquiry that the Conservative party was supposed to be holding into Islamophobia has gone strangely quiet since the GE.

And this pledge was aired during the live leadership debates, and agreed upon by several of the candidates, including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, and Rishi Sunak.

This inaction by both major parties to root out discrimination from their ranks is a shocking indictment of our politics right now, It's never been as bad in my memory, and sadly neither has the polarisation in our political system.

It's always a choice between the least worst options for me, and last time that was the Conservatives, next time it'll be Labour I suspect, now they've moved on from the Corbyn years, I'm not disappointed anymore, because my expectations are so low, but I never thought I'd see the day when the UK government would threaten to behave illegally. And completely disregard the rule of law.