Amongst the post-apocalyptic Brexit debris, I have somehow managed to steel myself and pore over the depressing map of blue England in an attempt to seek out some positive signs of life and hope. The immediate signals are clear and well-documented, pretty much yellow ‘Remain’ for the large metropolitan areas and swathes of blue for the rural ‘Leave’ (although the blue is practically purple on the East Anglian fringes!).
Amongst all this there are some exceptions, some yellow remain anomalies that stand out amongst the sea of blue. On closer inspection, these areas are identified as Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire, South Hams in Devon, and South Lakeland in Cumbria. By anyone’s standards that’s a pretty eclectic mix, so I sought to understand what might be the reason these particular areas bucked their regional trends. When I examined who was the MP for these areas, a possible explanation emerged.
The main town in South Hams is Totnes. The MP for Totnes is the independently-minded Tory GP Dr Sarah Wollaston. She was famous during the campaign for switching from ‘Leave’ to ‘Remain’ and helping to bust the £350m a week NHS myth that the Vote Leave side were peddling. The MP for Rushcliffe is Tory grandee and respected pro-European Ken Clarke. South Lakeland, of course, is the stamping ground of our leader, Tim Farron.
It could be that there are other reasons why these seats voted the way they did, and I’m not an expert on these localities, but what it suggests is that where you have a well-respected, trusted and embedded local MP, it is perfectly possible to win the argument regardless of the national narrative. If this is the case, then it is a clear indication that there is no substitution for pavement politics which engages the local population and builds up a level of trust between the electorate and their local representative. This is critical if the public is to have its faith restored in parliamentary democracy.
It has often been said that after the apocalypse the only things left alive would be cockroaches and the Liberal Democrats. From my vantage point I can see plenty of cockroaches but also plenty of fertile ground for Liberal Democrats to rebuild people’s faith in the system.
* Daniel Russell has been a Lib Dem member for 25 years and is from Cleckheaton.
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14 Comments
Absolutely spot on!
(I think that Cerdigion can also be added to the list for bucking the trend.)
Its about building up, over time, a record of local integrity and hard work. Here in South Lakeland we hold all seats in Kendal our biggest town and work closely with and reinforce the work done by Tim.
For Lib Dems, its about ensuring that at every level of local from parish to county we are organised and acting togther with MP/Candidate.
On the matter of yellow islands in a sea of blue: Liverpool voted 58% remain and has learned from bitter experience not to buy the Sun newspaper or its spin!
I gave my “advice” to Parliament through an “Advisory” referendum. If the Government intended a “binary” win or lose referendum, then that is what they had to present to the public. Since when did the “advice of the people” become “the will of the people”, as Mr. Cameron and others are stating? Referenda in the UK are “Advisory” and not mandatory.
The whole purpose behind the provision of an “advisory referendum” in law is to allow the public to express its “view” to Parliament and for that ADVISORY to be fully considered for a debate in Parliament that will allow vote on questions arising. To do other would be a criminal neglect of that advice and criminally neglectful of the demographic and marginal outcome.
It is not a matter of sour grapes or denial of democracy, as some advocate, but that of contempt for the advice of the electorate, if the Government will not receive an Advisory Referendum according to its lawful provision.
There should be both a legal and parliamentary challenge to the actions of the Government. Regards.
The other South Hams MP, Gary Streeter (Con) also supported remain although with less national press coverage.
Add Monmouthshire to the list. Remarkably, and I mean remarkably, and against all expectation (due to our older demographic against the national average), and the ground war having been totally won by LEAVE, the county voted REMAIN. Albeit, by a small margin.
This was against the position a local high profile conservative MP who has campaign for a EU leave vote for a decade.
Looking at the result map, there is a correlation between those areas that voted REMAIN along the M4 corridor in large parts from London to Cardiff/Vale of Glamorgan went REMAIN.
So how many angry conservative (2015 election) there are here with the result, is this mood being picked up in other remain areas in Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex?
Phil H, Deputy Leader, Monmouthshire County Council
It will be interesting to focus on more individual constituencies when the larger counting regions are broken down. If/when that data is available it may be possible to test this idea further.
In Gloucestershire (along the M4/ M40 corridor referred to by Phil Hobson) Stroud, Cotswold and Cheltenham were all “yellow,” Stroud and Cheltenham by about 10 points from memory, Cotswold very narrowly. In both Stroud and Cheltenham the Tory MPs supported Remain; Cotswold’s MP was “Leave.”
Stroud was a Labour marginal up to 2010, then Tory marginal, retained with increased majority in 2015. Before 1997 the Alliance had run Labour close, once it became a Labour marginal the Alliance/LD vote shrank considerably. Cheltenham was of course LD held up to 2015 and has a strong LD council where 4 seats were gained in May. I would have thought Cheltenham would be a top target seat; the fact that the sitting MP is a Remainer gives him some defence but it would be fair to point out that his own party pulled the rug from under his feet.
The Cotswold result, while narrow, was perhaps the most surprising.
“blue is practically purple on the East Anglian fringes!”
“what it suggests is that where you have a well-respected, trusted and embedded local MP, it is perfectly possible to win the argument regardless of the national narrative”
It does suggest that a vocal MP promoting one side. Tendring and Maldon in Essex have Douglas Carswell and Priti Patel as MPs in those areas and then came out very heavily for leave, but the Colchester district was much closer (and had Bob Russell until 2015).
Phil H — don’t forget Wokingham, John Redwood’s constituency of all places, went Remain, whereas neighbouring Bracknell, with a pro-Remain Tory MP (Phillip Lee), went Leave.
It is important to emphasise that not all the pro-Leave areas were impoverished districts of political outcasts … neither were all the pro-Remain areas full of liberal metropolitan hypercommuters (Snowdonia springs to mind)
I would love ward data to be available but it is unclear if it ever will be – I’ve got a hunch that my ward was largely Leave in a pro-Remain area…
I think amongst all the correlated variables (age, education, social class) that the polls looked at, level of education was the dominant factor in determining Remain vs Leave votes, other than regional effects like Scotland and probably London.
But there is no doubt that at least 20% of the public were desperate to find a positive role model in the sea of misinformation from failed politicians on all sides. Maybe if the BBC had given Tim 8% of the air time and Caroline Lucas 5%, the result would have been different?
BTW I don’t think the data will ever be available below the local authority level, which only occasionally corresponds to a constituency. It was not in the Euro elections. No doubt some political parties in some areas collected more granular information as the boxes were opened
Remain did well in very high status outer metropolitan areas that are normally strongly Tory: Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, Rushcliffe, Harrogate. Remain also did well in a few rural areas that may not be particularly wealthy overall but have extremely wealthy minorities: Cotswold and Stroud. This should worry the Leave side. People who are really good at making money voted Remain in droves. The Tory right should be concerned that their determination to isolate Britain may not be what their party’s core powerbase wants.
Mendip and South Hams are perplexing. Why did they go Remain when similar neighbouring areas went Leave? Neither is particularly wealthy. Neither has a university. Both, however, have New Age communities, which could have been big enough to make the difference. Similarly, Lewes. David Icke campaigned for Leave, but his influence on the New Age community is actually not that great (he is heavily critical of a lot of New Age thinking).
Add my house to the list 🙂 100% remain surrounded by leave ( I am in VERY conservative Broxbourne in Herts ) 😉
This perception that the urban areas in the south voted REMAIN and the rural, LEAVE, needs qualification at the micro level – and in the exceptions, if we can disinter them, may lie useful information.
In Colchester Borough, the town appears to have voted narrowly REMAIN while surrounding rural areas were heavily LEAVE. But in adjoining Tendring district, the biggest (relatively depressed) towns (Clacton and Harwich) were very heavily LEAVE. The REMAIN vote was concentrated in more prosperous smaller towns like Manningtree and Frinton – but above all, in the most rural of rural communities!
The determining issue for many in Clacton, Harwich and Walton was of course immigration. These places have hardly any immigrants, unless you count white Anglo-Saxon Londoners retiring to Clacton and Walton.