Conservatives

Preparedness

The Conservatives have been obviously preparing for a general election since the summer. The signs were all there, even while Boris Johnson was insisting he did not want to go to the polls, with the appointment of Isaac Levido, a protege of Australian election strategist Lynton Crosby, as campaigns director. Two women from a thinktank background, Munira Mirza and Rachel Wolf, have been writing the party’s manifesto for months. MPs have been hitting the phones canvassing, and special advisers are expecting to be assigned roles in Conservative party headquarters and on the campaign. “We are much more advanced than when Theresa May called her election in 2017,” says one adviser.

The party has had a bounce in membership since Johnson became prime minister but its ground campaign is traditionally less impressive than Labour’s network of activists. However, it has a big war chest of donations built up, after raising more than £5m in the second quarter of the year, and money is expected to be ploughed into social media and mailshots.

Policies

Johnson’s big slogan will be a promise to “get Brexit done” by passing his deal through parliament, banking on weariness in the country about a further referendum. He will therefore ramp up his claims that parliament frustrated his efforts to implement Brexit before his “do or die” deadline of 31 October, which he may be punished for failing to meet. Casting it as a “people versus parliament” election, with Johnson portraying himself on the side of the electorate, the Tories want to frame their leader as an anti-establishment candidate despite his privileged background and a lifetime spent in politics and the media.

The prime minister will also want some focus on domestic policies, after May’s 2017 campaign was criticised for promoting her “strong and stable” leadership at the expense of any eye-catching offers for voters. He will concentrate on law and order, believing this is a strong suit because the Tories are pledging more police officers. However, this backfired in 2017, when the opposition highlighted cuts to the police at a time when the country was reeling from terror attacks. Johnson has also been visiting hospitals and intends to promote his Vote Leave pledge to give another £350m a week to the NHS, although this is a risky ploy going head to head with Labour on their traditional turf. The campaign will also emphasise pledges on schools funding – despite this being another difficult area for the party in 2017 with voters unhappy about education cuts and years of austerity affecting the system.

Campaign

The campaign is set to be directed from CCHQ by Levido, who helped deliver Scott Morrison’s shock victory in Australia for the Liberals. However, the extent of Crosby’s role is unclear. Crosby is an old friend and associate of the prime minister, having run his mayoral campaigns and Tory elections in both 2015 and 2017. However, the pair fell out over Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds, during Johnson’s leadership campaign and one Tory adviser said Crosby was expected to be more “hands-off” this time.

The campaign is likely to take inspiration from the Vote Leave campaign of 2016, with a big emphasis on social media. The party has already been trialling new methods of catching people’s attention with badly-designed memes that get people talking and therefore amplify its message. Two New Zealanders in their 20s, Sean Topham and Ben Guerin, who used to work as contractors for Crosby, have been employed to improve the party’s online operations, after a disastrous 2017 election when the Tories were outgunned by Labour in internet campaigning.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeremy Corbyn. Photograph: Reuters

Labour

Preparedness

Labour raised just over £2m in donations in the second quarter of this year– but in 2017, the party’s coffers were significantly boosted during the campaign by large one-off donations from the trades union Unite and a flood of smaller donations from grassroots members.

The party has been pressing ahead with the re-selection of sitting MPs and selections in seats it hopes to win. The results have been a mixed bag but candidates backed by the leftwing Momentum have fared well, winning selections in Barry, Bury South and Poplar and Limehouse.

In seats where no one has yet been selected, Labour rules give the national executive committee (NEC) wide discretion to impose candidates once a campaign is under way.

Policies

Labour’s Brexit position, hard-fought at its annual conference in Brighton last month, is that it will seek to negotiate a close future relationship with the EU27 and then put that deal to the public in a referendum.

That would allow Corbyn’s party to say to remainers that a Labour government will give them a referendum, while holding out the possibility of a Labour Brexit to leave voters.

But the party will hope to shift the focus to transformative domestic policies, including its plans for a green new deal, and a significant increase in spending on public services.

There will be a fierce internal debate about how much more radical the manifesto should be than in 2017. Grassroots members passed several radical policy motions in Brighton, including rejecting any caps or controls on migration, and incorporating private schools into the state system.

Final decisions will be made at a so-called clause V meeting, which will include members of the party’s governing national executive committee, as well as representatives of the unions and the Scottish and Welsh parties.

Campaign

Labour honed its campaigning machine in 2017, combining large-scale public events to create buzzy footage for the TV news, with spiky social media material, much of it shared organically.

The campaign will be jointly chaired by Andrew Gwynne, who played the same role in 2017, and close Corbyn ally Ian Lavery. The manifesto is expected to be drafted by Labour’s policy chief Andrew Fisher, who has promised to stay on for a general election, despite tendering his resignation last month.

At the party’s Southside HQ in Victoria, where many Labour advisers will decamp for the campaign, Corbyn’s chief of staff, Karie Murphy, is expected to play a central role, as will his strategic adviser, Seumas Milne.

Murphy locked horns with Labour staffers in 2017 about how offensive Labour’s campaign should be. Conversations have already been taking place in recent weeks about whether to circle the wagons around MPs whose seats are under threat or push resources into those constituencies Labour would need to gain to win a majority.

The election will represent the first run-out for a new army of local “community organisers”. John McDonnell has repeatedly highlighted them as a key part of the “social movement” Labour wants to build, but some party veterans complain they are not sufficiently focused on campaigning or plugged into local party networks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The SNP appear to be in a strong position, with polling in their favour. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters

Scottish National party

Preparedness

Perhaps the most keen of all the political parties to hold a winter general election due to the forthcoming trial of former first minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, which is due to take place next month.

There is a feeling an earlier election would be beneficial because the political fall-out from the case is unknown and the ramifications so difficult to factor into an election strategy.

Right now, the SNP appears to be in a strong position, with polling in its favour and the potential to take all 13 Tory seats in the north-east and the borders.

Polling is also strong for another Scottish independence referendum – most recently at 50% – which once again will be their core election offer.

Party finances are said to be in a decent position with membership fees paid by 120,000 people. SNP MPs also crowdfund for the party. In the second quarter of this year, they received £500,000, although the majority came from public money and not private donors. By comparison, in the same time period the Brexit party received £1m from private individuals.

Policies

The SNP thinks this is the perfect time to push for a second independence referendum. If it is asked to support a Labour minority government in some kind of post-election deal, party leader Nicola Sturgeon has already made clear another poll on independence is her primary demand.

The party will push the case that Scotland is better off as an independent nation and that the country deeply opposes Brexit. Opposition to austerity, welfare reforms and tackling the Tories’ “hostile environment” immigration strategy are other topics expected to feature in the SNP election manifesto. It is also likely to continue their campaign for votes for 16-year-olds.

How they will campaign

The SNP will go after the 13 Tory seats with gusto with an overall hope of getting their MP count from 35 and into the 50s in the Commons in a best-case scenario. A jewel in the crown would be swiping the seat of Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson who holds East Dunbartonshire with a majority of 5,000. However, it faces a strong challenge from the Lib Dems in the most marginal seat in the country, North East Fife, which Stephen Gethins holds by a majority of just two. Swinson’s party will also want to take the seat of the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, the MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. It gets dark very early in December in the north of Scotland and bad weather is to be expected but since the SNP is pushing for a poll, it can be assumed they are not too concerned about campaigning in the elements.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Under Jo Swinson’s leadership, the Lib Dems are raring to go. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

Liberal Democrats

Preparedness

As evidence by the fact it was a Lib Dem-instigated plan which unblocked the election process, the party is raring to go and hopes to make significant gains now it has accepted a second referendum seems impossible in this parliament.

The Lib Dems are notably less well-resourced than the big two, with donations of £4.2m in the past 12 months, about a third of those seen by Labour, and a quarter of the Conservative haul. But they do have an increasingly well-organised election machine and one energised by good results in May’s local elections, where they gained 700-plus councillors, and the European elections saw them finish second, on nearly 20% of the vote.

The party is also enjoying a real sense of momentum, growing in recent months from the 12-MP haul in the 2017 election to 19 now, a tally swelled by one byelection win and a series of defections from other parties. The final piece of the jigsaw is a new leader, with Jo Swinson taking over from Vince Cable in July, a choice largely welcomed by the party’s MPs and members.

The Lib Dem autumn conference in Bournemouth saw near-constant chatter about the number of seats the party could win in an imminent election, with predictions tending to start at about 40 and rise in accordance with ambition, excitement and the number of glasses of wine consumed.

Many target seats will be in the southwest of England or in remain-minded urban seats such as several in leafy southwest London, or places such as Sheffield and Cambridge. The somewhat limited Lib Dem war chest will be offset by the fact the party’s number of target seats, or those being defended, is smaller than for the Tories or Labour.

Policies

Brexit, Brexit and more Brexit. There was a reason why Swinson insisted her party could only back an election if the government first shelved its withdrawal bill. The Lib Dems are the anti-leave party-in-chief, banking on outraged remain sentiment, plus a sense among voters that Labour is sitting on the fence, to propel them to significant gains. A key moment at the party’s conference was the decision to commit to revoking Brexit in the admittedly unlikely event they win a majority in the Commons.

Other than that, the party will campaign on areas such as supporting the NHS, investment in public transport and an increased focus on the climate emergency.

Campaign

The Lib Dems are a traditionally localised party – to the regular annoyance of leaders past and present – but are also an increasingly slick campaigning machine. Expect daily TV shots of Swinson decamping from a shiny battlebus to deliver policy soundbites in a string of target seats.

A novelty for the party will be the focus on the fight for new arrivals to take new seats, into which a fair amount of resources could be diverted – something which will not delight all party members. Key focuses will be Chuka Umunna, once of Labour, trying to take Cities of London and Westminster and ex-Tory Sam Gyimah in Kensington.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Brexit party are hoping to make significant inroads in Labour heartlands. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

Brexit party

Preparedness

The Brexit party led by former Ukip leader Nigel Farage is untested at a general election but they are hoping to make significant inroads in Labour’s heartlands in northern England, Midlands and along the Kent coast – the areas they believe are out of bounds for Conservatives.

On the number of seats they might gain they estimate it could be “somewhere in the teens” to 50, however they continue their offer of a pact with the Conservatives in order to return as many leave-supporting MPs to Westminster as possible.

In return the Brexit party will want a seat at the top table if they were needed to prop up a Tory majority government with a greater say over future negotiations. This offer has so far been rejected outright by No 10, despite Farage claiming that if they “worked together they would be an unstoppable electoral force”.

Their finances are understood to be in a healthy state with money flowing in from former Tory donors and those who choose to give funds to both parties. They also take a significant amount from registered supporters who pay a £25 one-off fee to join.

Policies

A central objective is delivering a “clean Brexit”, which is their term for a no-deal Brexit and emphasises the need for full freedom to trade around the world as well as a genuine extraction of the UK from EU institutions.

Their doorstep pitch is also about wider political reform, including abolishing the House of Lords, proportional representation, reviewing the way the BBC works, abolishing inheritance tax and redirecting foreign aid.

Expect to hear their other financial pledge trotted out in media interviews, which is that they would cancel HS2 and that saving, combined with no future payments for EU membership, would give £200bn back to the Treasury over the next few years.

How they will campaign

Money will be spent on a huge social media drive, creating viral videos and taking inspiration from American campaigning techniques including large, professionally produced rallies.

Their ability to get through to voters with precision social media targeting is a source of pride for the party. However they admit they will need to combat the Conservative slogan of “Get Brexit Done”, which they admit is extremely powerful and will appeal to their potential voters.

They are already selling winter campaigning merchandise on their website, including a handy ice scraper. Ambitiously, for a first general election, they will campaign right across the country and have vetted 600 candidates so far.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Green party co-leaders Siân Berry and Jonathan Bartley Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Green party

Preparedness

The Greens are by no means a rich party. In the past 12 months, total donations have been below £200,000 and a fall in their vote share in the 2017 election led to a drop in official funding for parliamentary activity, forcing them to resort to a public crowdfunder to avoid laying off staff.

That said, the Greens have an increasingly sophisticated election operation, and one that has expanded as its local councillors have spread. At May’s local elections, the party won 200 councillors, something the leadership put down to years of carefully-targeted effort.

As a campaign machine, the Greens have the advantage of two eloquent and telegenic co-leaders in Siân Berry and Jonathan Bartley, an arrangement that is no longer mocked, as happened when Bartley first co-led with Caroline Lucas, the party’s sole MP.

Policies

The Greens’ offer is a remain stance as strong as the Lib Dems, policies on the economy and social justice which they would argue are even more radical than Labour, plus an abiding commitment to tackling the climate emergency.

The rueful half-joke about Green policies is that other parties spend several years mocking the ideas before quietly lifting them, as with Labour’s interest in a universal basic income and the four-day working week.

One paradox is that while the Greens have tried to expand their message beyond environmental issues, these are now high on the news agenda thanks to climate strikers such as Greta Thunberg and the actions of Extinction Rebellion.

Campaign

Lucas’s seat of Brighton Pavilion is now fairly safe, with the 1,200 majority she had when she took it from Labour now expanded to well over 14,000. However, the electoral system works strongly against the Greens and gains elsewhere seem unlikely.

But with Lucas, Berry and Bartley all out campaigning, the party will hope at the very least for a result closer to 2015, when they took almost 4% of the total vote, as opposed to the 2017 result when a squeeze by the main parties pushed the Greens’ return down to 1.9%.