Aiming high: Scottish Liberal Democrats launch “Stop Brexit” manifesto

The Scottish Liberal Democrats are the only party in Scotland who want to keep Scotland in the UK and the EU.

You would not expect a Willie Rennie manifesto launch to be boring. Sadly, there were no farm animals, but he and Alex Cole-Hamilton had a race up a climbing wall in Ratho, near Edinburgh.

It’s a great picture!

The prospects for the Scottish Lib Dems have not looked this good in years. The field work from the ComRes poll at the weekend had us in joint second with the Brexit Party, which gives us a real chance of getting party legend Sheila sent to Brussels.

There is clearly everything to play for in the next 9 days. There are record numbers of doors being knocked the length of the country. My spies tell me that Borders candidate Jenny Marr’s local party is vying for the top spot in terms of doors knocked along with the Edinburgh West and East Dunbartonshire.

My absolute favourite moment of the campaign so far was on Saturday when canvassing in Edinburgh. There was a springer spaniel on the other side of the gate looking up at me adoringly. She then lay down on her back to get her tummy tickled. Of course obliged and it properly made my day.

 

 

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings

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11 Comments

  • So on that poll it would be

    1. SNP
    2/3 Lib Dem/Brexit
    4. SNP
    5. Labour
    6th SNP or Tory

    If they could put on a few percentage points at the expense of the Tories and SNP they’d even have a chance of a second seat. We can but dream.

  • The polling just gets better and better. Please keep sitting on the fence Mr Corbyn. I wonder if Change UK will call it a day after the Euro’s?

  • Tristan Ward 14th May '19 - 7:28pm

    If bollocks to Brexit is the slogan they ought to have worn kilts. Clearly not “on message”.

  • Latest BMG poll Brexit 26, Labour 22, Lib Dem 19. I keep pinching myself.

  • Need to start listening to the Scottish more and ask what they want, I think we as a party need to be more forward with what we want to do in power with the union. If we are talking UK wide devolved power this needs to be blazed on the rooftops.we need to challenge the SNP and make the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish our priority, in a fairer united kingdom

  • It’s worth pointing out that if the Lib Dem’s are back in the 16% to 19% polling range, whilst the Tories and Labour reach new low and the Brexit party does well that the FPTP system would produce interesting electoral results. If the Brexit party splits the Tory vote a la UKIP then the impact on the Lib Dem’s can take us from 11 seats to 60+ (depending on where the vote is concentrated). If we can reach higher than the 20s in this backdrop who knows how well we can do. Exciting times.

    Personally I hope that after the Euro’s we can dispatch Change UK to the history books as they are clearly a distraction and probably cost us a critical few percent here and there. My hope is that sanity prevails and that those Change UK MPs who feel like they could sit as Lib Dem’s become Lib Dem’s. They have politicians of unquestionable talent and we shouldn’t ignore that. Equally they can’t ignore that the Lib Dem’s have a political machine and now poll ratings they can only dream of.

  • It’s worth noting that the Lib Dem votes is less evenly distributed than before.

    Going through @326pols analysis we are very, very close to getting or not getting a second MEP in the South West, South East and London and getting or not getting an MEP at all in some of the northern and Midlands regions – in some cases by well under 0.5%. Equivalent to a few votes in each of our individual wards.

    I think it likely that there will be an opinion poll that shows us level or ahead of the Labour party. Whether or not we will be in practice is a different thing.

    Our MPs also need to take a leaf out of Alex Cole-Hamilton’s book and talk up our opinion poll rating. Christine Jardine was very poor at that on Radio 5 Live yesterday evening (and she is normally excellent). We are now on double the rating of the Greens and four times that of CHUK.

    If, say half of Remainers voting Green, CHUK, Labour and Tory get behind the Lib Dems on BMG’s figures we can beat the Brexit party.

  • @Michael1 that’s an interesting analysis. Traditionally I think we tend to do better in Tory areas than Labour areas. So if he Brexit Party reduces the Tory vote then we are in a happy place.

  • Roy Pounsford 15th May '19 - 2:44pm

    Mike Smithson
    @MSmithsonPB
    BMG Euros poll for the Indy has
    BXP 26%
    LAB 22%
    LD 19%
    CON 12%
    GRN 10%
    CUK 3%
    So the LDs just 7 points behind BXP

    167
    8:50 PM – May 14, 2019

  • So if he Brexit Party reduces the Tory vote then we are in a happy place.

    May be. It depends and possibly overall (I haven’t done the analysis) but in some regions it may make no difference or it might give Brexit get an extra seat at our expense! And it depends exactly how the Tories are posed overall in a region.

    For example, @326pols https://twitter.com/326Pols/status/1128009737973501953 for the South West has
    Brexit 40%, Lib Dem 21%, Labour 12%, Green 11%, Tory 8%, CHUK 5%
    With 6 seats to be allocated.

    Brexit get the first seat and their vote gets divided by 2 – now equals 20%

    Lib Dems get the second seat and their vote get divided by 2 – now equals 10.5%

    Brexit get the third seat and their vote divided by 3 – now equals 13.3%

    The final 3 seats are still left to be allocated – with the effective percentages:

    Brexit 13.3%, Labour 12%, Green 11%, Lib Dem 10.5%.

    As you can see it’s a big bunfight for the allocation for three out of the last four seats.

    Indeed a swing of less than 0.5% from us to the Greens would see us picking up an extra seat! No movement from the Tories to Brexit can help us. Indeed a movement from Brexit to the Tories might help us as a slight increase in our vote could mean a fight between us and Brexit for the last seat. So long as the Tories didn’t overtake us!

    Having said that in the South East, there is a “bunfight” to get 2 seats from 2 of the three of Labour (16%), Conservatives (16%) and Lib Dems (15%).

    There a slight movement from Conservatives would move us up among the three contenders. (The other 8 seats get reasonably “comfortably” allocated – Brexit 4, 1 each – Labour, Con, Lib Dem, Green) – although too much might see a fifth seat for Brexit!

    But equally a movement from Tory to Labour or Labour to Tory would help us in demoting either Tory or Labour in the three-way fight!

    Hopefully I have understood this correctly – it does tend to begin to do your head in! I’m sure someone will correct me if I haven’t!

    The important message for Lib Dem campaigners is very small numbers of votes could have a big effect on our MEP numbers

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