If LAB’s vulnerable on Brexit how come the majority of its GE17 gains from CON were in Leave areas?

And how come that the majority of CON gains were in Remain areas?

One of the ongoing narratives over the past year has been that Labour is particularly vulnerable on Brexit because about two-thirds of its constituencies voted leave in the referendum in June 2016.

This has continued even though Labour made inroads into the Conservative base on June 8th and only lost 5 seats.

What is interesting is looking at the referendum outcomes in the 28 seats that Labour gained from the Conservatives in the general election. Remarkably 15 of them were in areas that voted LEAVE. These were:

Bedford

Bury N

Weaver Vale

Warrington South

Stockton

Portsmouth South

Plymouth

Peterborough

Lincoln

Keighley

Ipswich

High Peak

Derby North

Crewe and Nantwich

Gower

Clwyd

The Conservatives offset some of their losses making 20 gains just seven of which were in constituencies which had voted Leave. The rest were Remain. That, admittedly, is distorted by the 12 gains in Scotland from the SNP all but one of them had voted Remain.

But Tories regained from the Liberal Democrats Richmond Park as well as taking Southport, both Remain areas. Tim farron’s team made 5 gains from the Conservatives including one, Eastbourne, which had voted Leave.

Judging by what happened the Leave-Remain split in a constituency was and is less of an indicator than many assert.

Mike Smithson

Follow @MSmithsonPB



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