MRP poll finds Tories losing 256 seats facing LAB/LD/GRN pact
From Martin Baxter of Electoral Calculus
Cambridge mathematician and creator of Electoral Calculus, Martin Baxter, has produced an extraordinary 16k sample that seeks to assess what would happen if LAB, the LDs and the Greens entered into an electoral pact whereby only one of them would field candidates in each seat at a general election. The broad results are in the panel above.
His pollster, Find out Now, conducted the survey amongst residents of England and Wales over four days last week. This is from his write-up:
The poll asked England and Wales residents whether and how they intend to vote if there were an imminent general election and there was an electoral pact between Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party. The poll asked England and Wales residents whether and how they intend to vote if there were an imminent general election and there was an electoral pact between Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party. It was also assumed that the 573 seats in England and Wales were allocated between the pact parties, so that only one of the pact parties would stand a candidate in each seat.
This is how the seat selection would work:
If a pact party was elected to the seat in 2019 or gained the seat in a by-election, then that party is selected for that seat. Of the remaining seats, one seat in 16 (eg 6%) is selected for the Greens, based on the Greens’ vote share in 2019. The selected seats must contain a fair and even variety of “winnability”..Of the remaining seats, seats are selected for Labour and the Liberal Democrats depending on which party received more votes in 2019.
The thing I find remarkable is that the LDs would see their seat total up by 60 on a significantly reduced vote share.
Quite whether such a deal would ever come about I don’t know. It would be very hard for the parties to reach an agreement and you could envisage huge rows over specific seats. One of the challenges would be local party activists who might be reluctant to stand aside completely.
The price though for those who oppose the Tories is enormous.