Option 1

If you don’t want the Tories to win ...



There are 48 seats in the country where the combined vote of Labour, Lib Dem, Greens and - if relevant - Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party outweighed Conservative votes in 2015. In all of these, the tactical option is to vote for the biggest of the opposition parties. Use the search box below to find out if your seat is among them, or see below for a full list.

Should you vote tactically? Search for your constituency name or postcode Find

Where a tactical vote might matter

The 48 seats where votes for the opposition (Labour, Lib Dem, SNP or Plaid Cymru) outnumbered those for the Conservatives. But a note of caution: in some places the Ukip vote, if it all went to the Tories, is big enough to keep the Tories in place

East Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Bedford Labour 19,625 21,898 4,434 Peterborough Labour 18,684 19,751 7,485 Thurrock Labour 16,692 16,800 15,718 Watford Labour 24,400 26,090 5,481 Waveney Labour 22,104 22,512 7,580 Colchester Lib Dem 18,919 23,695 5,870 East Midlands Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Corby Labour 24,023 24,443 7,708 Derby North Labour 16,402 21,811 6,532 Lincoln Labour 19,976 20,525 5,721 London Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Croydon Central Labour 22,753 25,194 4,810 Kingston and Surbiton Lib Dem 23,249 31,311 4,321 Sutton and Cheam Lib Dem 20,732 23,408 5,341 Twickenham Lib Dem 25,580 33,155 3,069 North-east Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Berwick-upon-Tweed Lib Dem 16,603 19,219 4,513 North-west Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Bolton West Labour 19,744 20,890 7,428 Bury North Labour 18,970 20,665 5,595 Warrington South Labour 25,928 28,278 4,909 Weaver Vale Labour 20,227 21,999 4,547 Cheadle Lib Dem 22,889 25,109 4,423 Hazel Grove Lib Dem 17,882 20,054 5,283 Scotland Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP 20,759 29,903 1,472 South-east Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Brighton, Kemptown Labour 18,428 22,290 4,446 Canterbury Labour 22,918 23,093 7,289 Reading East Labour 23,217 23,630 3,647 Southampton, Itchen Labour 18,656 19,811 6,010 Eastbourne Lib Dem 20,934 25,695 6,139 Lewes Lib Dem 19,206 25,907 5,427 Oxford West and Abingdon Lib Dem 26,153 26,342 3,963 Portsmouth South Lib Dem 14,585 20,673 5,595 South-west Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Bristol North West Labour 22,767 23,989 4,889 Camborne and Redruth Labour 18,452 19,743 6,776 Plymouth, Moor View Labour 16,020 17,282 9,152 Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport Labour 18,120 23,006 6,731 Bath Lib Dem 17,833 25,850 2,922 Cheltenham Lib Dem 24,790 24,865 3,808 St Ives Lib Dem 18,491 23,583 5,720 Thornbury and Yate Lib Dem 19,924 23,520 5,126 Torbay Lib Dem 19,551 21,988 6,540 Yeovil Lib Dem 24,178 25,109 7,646 Wales Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Aberconwy Labour 12,513 14,168 3,467 Cardiff North Labour 21,709 25,080 3,953 Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire Labour 17,626 18,026 4,698 Gower Labour 15,862 21,599 4,773 Vale of Clwyd Labour 13,760 16,924 4,577 Brecon and Radnorshire Lib Dem 16,453 20,283 3,338 West Midlands Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Telford Labour 16,094 17,221 7,330 Yorkshire and the Humber Seat Vote for Con vote Opposition vote Ukip vote Calder Valley Labour 23,354 23,683 5,950 Morley and Outwood Labour 18,776 21,044 7,951

If your seat is already held by one of these parties, the safest tactical option is to vote for the incumbent.

Lastly, some seats look unlosable for the Tories: the combined vote of all the progressive parties would not have been enough in 2015 to win the seat. In these cases, the tactical option is still to vote for the biggest opposition party, but you may find it a little academic.

Option 2

If you want the Tories to win ...

Don’t beat about the bush. Vote Tory. There is now no single seat in which Ukip look better placed to win. And since Theresa May still seems likely to come back with an absolute majority, you shouldn’t fret unduly about who her coalition partners will be.

Option 3

If you don’t want the Tories to win, but only because you don’t trust them to deliver a sufficiently hard Brexit ...

We can’t help you. Sorry.

Note: This guide is based purely on 2015 election results, for two closely related reasons: 1. This means that we use the same information for every constituency. 2. It means that the information is directly comparable; for instance, even byelection and general election results in a given constituency can be quite different because turnout tends to be much lower at a byelection. (We have, though, noted the rare cases where a constituency has changed hands in a byelection since 2015.) On this basis, our advice in option 1 is always to vote for the opposition party, among Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP or Plaid Cymru, which polled highest in 2015.

We have not taken account of polling, because of well-publicised concerns about its value as a prediction, particularly at the constituency level. You can find out more about your constituency and get contact details for the candidates here.