With this year‘s local elections defined by anti-Big Two sentiment the next step will be for Farage to enter the fray: is he as vulnerable to an authentic working class challenge as Labour are?
Thursday, J May 2019This year’s local elections were predictably catastrophic for the Tory party, but perhaps more significantly Labour went backwards at a point in the electoral cycle when any aspiring party of government should be devouring the opposition.
There was a clear Brexit gradient in effect, with Labour’s vote falling most in heavily Leave areas while the Tories lost a full one-third of the seats they contested in majority-Remain areas. But the underlying dynamic was anti-Big Two sentiment, with John Curtice noting that ‘what the two parties had in common was a tendency for their support to fall more heavily in their heartlands. (more…)