Thread by @jonworth

Sorry folks, but we have to talk about Farage

A #GeneralElection19 thread

Like it or not, until we know what Farage and the Brexit Party are going to do, we cannot even begin to work out what will happen in the election

At the 2015 General Election - pre-referendum - UKIP then led by Farage received 12.6% of the vote:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Unit…

At the 2017 General Election - post-referendum - Farage was no longer UKIP leader and the party received just 1.8%:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Unit…

Farage and his new Brexit Party are currently polling at about 13% for the 2019 General Election

But there's a pretty major question mark over all of this

In how many seats will the Brexit Party even run? How many candidates will they pull?

https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1189605927856607236

There are two ways to look at that.

First, *how* do they want to help the Tories?

Do they want to make the Tories more Brexit-y? Or do they want to help the Tories to win? Or both?

Related to this:

https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1189249212447215616

Let me illustrate the point with 3 example cases.

First, Chingford & Woodford Green
MP is Tory hardliner Iain Duncan Smith
49.9% voted Leave
Labour in 2nd place, marginal
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimbledon…

Second, Wimbledon
MP is soft Tory Stephen Hammond who just got the whip back
Only 29.4% Leave
Labour in 2nd place
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimbledon…

Third, Great Grimsby
MP is Labour - Melanie Onn
71.4% voted Leave
Tories in 2nd place
25% voted UKIP in 2015
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gri…

If the priority is to help the Tories win, Brexit Party should stand aside in all 3 of these seats

It would help Duncan Smith hold Chingford, help Hammond hold Wimbledon, and (by not splitting the pro-Brexit vote) help the Tories win Grimsby

But what about Wimbledon?

It is heavily Remain, so might swing to the Liberal Democrats anyway. And Hammond is a pragmatist (he voted for the Benn Act), so getting rid of him might make the Tories more Brexit-y

And what about Grimsby?

A quarter of the votes went to UKIP in 2015, one of the party's strongest results. Would Farage really dare stand down a candidate there?

It strikes me then that the only no brainer of these three example cases would be to stand down the Brexit Party candidate in Chingford to give Duncan Smith a free run

Then there is the issue of what happens to the potential Brexit Party voters if there is no Brexit Party candidate to vote for?

What % of those go to the Conservatives? (Probably more in ex-Tory Leave areas than ex-Labour Leave areas) And what percentage simply stay home?

And even though UKIP is in turmoil, could they nevertheless hoover up some of the angry Brexiters?
bbc.com/news/uk-politi…

And then - faced with all of that - how do Remain parties in these constituencies then choose to react?

Faced with a Tory-Brexit Party pact of sorts, will that focus minds for a Lib Dem-Green pact, or even expand that to include Plaid Cymru, SNP, even some Labour?

I do not know the answers to these questions.

But the most important priority to understand this election just now is to get clarity about Farage's intentions. Because whatever he decides to do can - like it or not - have pretty major implications!

/ends