In the Tory heartlands of the commuter belt, remainers may revolt
While the Tories have been transforming themselves into the nationalist, Pooterish party of hard Brexit, essentially cosmopolitan attitudes – open, internationalist – have been seeping into the formerly Conservative areas of our cities, and the suburbs and towns around them.
Some of this was evident in 2017, in the seats lost by the Tories to both Labour and the Liberal Democrats: Bath, Kingston and Surbiton, Battersea, Enfield Southgate. The same story is reflected in the weakening Conservative presence around Manchester and Bristol – and Lib Dem targets such as St Albans in Hertfordshire. But perhaps the most interesting story lies in Surrey, that traditional signifier of true-blue Tory England.
Until recently, the county had 11 Tory MPs. But by the time the election was called, the Conservatives had expelled Anne Milton, Philip Hammond and Sam Gyimah (now a Lib Dem). In local elections this May, the Tories lost 117 council seats in Surrey and control of four local authorities. Among Surrey’s eight remaining Tory MPs are such Brexiters as Dominic Raab, Michael Gove and Kwasi Kwarteng. But in the borough of Guildford, remain got 56.2% in the 2016 referendum; in Woking, 56.2%; in Elmbridge, which includes Raab’s seat of Esher and Walton, nearly 60%.
I went to Guildford last week. Of late, it may have seemed rock-solid Tory. But way back in 2001, the Lib Dems took it with a majority of 538 – which, combined with an uptick in 2017 and recent gains in local elections, seems to have convinced them they can win again. Two years ago, Labour got close to a not-unreasonable 20% of the vote. Obviously, the Conservatives are still a force to be reckoned with. But now that Milton has been thrown out of the Conservatives and is running a campaign so far based on “a smartphone and a laptop”, there is a clear sense of no one having a clue what will happen: it’s the election in microcosm.
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When I talked to people in the centre of town and observed some Lib Dem canvassing in the upscale neighbourhood of Onslow, one thing was striking: as well as a smattering of staunch and sometimes angry Brexit supporters, there were many people who said that post-2016 Conservatism had left them feeling abandoned. “Labour and the Tories are too extreme,” said one man, who up to now had been a loyal Conservative. “I want a centrist party.” These days, “centrist” is usually thrown around as an insult; he said it with a sense of pained loss. A little earlier, I had met a churchgoing couple in their 60s – he a geologist, she a self-described housewife – who had often voted Conservative down the years, but were also switching. “It feels like we have to vote on Brexit, and we’re remainers,” they said.
John Harris writing in the Guardian
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/10/surrey-commuters-marginal-voters-election-tories-guildford