The idea that BoJo has some magical means of reaching LAB or pro-Brexit voters isn’t backed up by his record

Let's not forget that LAB secured a 6.5% swing against Boris at GE2017. That hardly suggests he can reach voters that others can't pic.twitter.com/DpsvZahKoN — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) June 10, 2019

At Uxbridge Johnson performed worse than the London Tory average

One of the apparent great selling points for Johnson to his party is that somehow he has a means of reaching voters that other Tories do not have. Therefore, his supporters argue, he is the man to take the party forward at a general election.

Well looking at what happened at the last election in his West London constituency of Uxbridge there is nothing to back this up. Even bearing in mind that the Conservatives did poorly in the capital in 2017 compared with elsewhere Johnson did worse than the average CON to LAB swing of 6.2% in the capital.

Just looking at the result in Uxbridge you would have thought that the largish UKIP vote from the election before would have got behind Johnson who was, after all, the leader of the Leave campaign. The numbers suggest that that didn’t happen.

The turnout level in Johnson’s constituency was also lower than the London average of 70.1%.

The main case that somehow Johnson has some amazing ability is largely based on his 2008 and 2012 London mayoral campaigns when he did indeed win the Crown twice. But we should also remember that the margins were pretty close and of course his opponent was Ken Livingstone who by 2012 was not the electoral magnet that he had been.

Mike Smithson

Follow @MSmithsonPB



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