British Left

[dr abc]

Based on Treasurer of the PC's excellent England 2015 scenario I am thinking of modifying it to add a left of center-left party for England.

My question is which seats to make it strong in?

To make things easier I will not give them candidates in all 550-odd constituencies, just the 100-150 where they would have a chance of influencing the outcome.

I want them to have an national average of 5% popular support, and the potential to get up to 10 MPs if they do really well. So they would be getting 15-25% in the seats they contest.

The idea would be that this party ("Left Coalition") would be a mixture of left-wing Labour (angered at alliance with LD's), Tony Benn types, and various further left Socialist type minor parties (SWP/Respect, SLP/Scargill, Socialist Party/Alternative etc).

Thinking of a Bob Crow type figure for leader.

Sort of like the German PDS/Linke which scores 5-10%, and has a few medium profile SPD defectors.

I have using Wikipedia and google to try to find information on the extra-parliamentary Left's electoral history but have found nothing useful, just total votes for each of the dozens of parties individually.

I know vaguely there would be places where they're stronger - the big cities in the North, East London, Liverpool etc - but I would like to know which constituencies more specifically and what they could realistically expect to get in the best of those.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

edit:

To fit them into TotPC's scenario I would be reducing Conservatives and Labour-LD's to around 40% and 30%. The remaining percentage points freed go to the English Nationalists (~8%) Greens and Independents.

[EGaffney]

The Hard Left has never done very well in elections, but that's mainly because the Labour Party used to be much more tolerant towards them that it is today. So yes, the merger of the two big left parties would be a trigger for flanking opposition. 2005 was the peak of their success in recent years, but it's hard to separate the "hard left" share, which would be pretty reliable, from the "anti-Iraq War" share, which wouldn't be as reliable. For instance, you can't look at RESPECT and just call them a left-wing party, when their support base is obviously Muslims in inner-city areas south of Birmingham. But you could say that, broadly speaking, the more inner-city and deprived an area is, the more votes a hard-left party would win.

A corollary of this is that they're very unlikely to be able to field 150 meaningful candidates. Even the Green Party, long-established, only managed about 170 in England last time. Another is that, because the Tory vote is so low in the places I'm talking about, the left would need a very good performance to beat the Lab-Libs.

The constituencies you should focus on are: anywhere with a strong RESPECT vote in 2005, i.e. Bethnal Green, parts of Birmingham, East and West Ham, Poplar and Preston; East London between Hackney and Dagenham, Lewisham, Tottenham, Vauxhall, Camberwell/Peckham; Coventry, where Dave Nellist has an operation; Leicester; Sheffield's urban constituencies; and Liverpool.

By the way, have you considered adding the Green Party to that list of allies? The UK is similar to Scandinavia in some ways, and the GPEW is quite radical, so a Green-Left coalition would make sense. If you add the Greens, the situation I've described changes radically, and the new party looks set to win a couple more seats.

[matvail2002]

RESPECT can be socially conservative in some ways, especially on ways (such as gay marriage) which can go against the core of the electorate of the party in 2005. BTW, the Canadian Green Party could be considered ''right-wing'' on a few (especially economic) issues. I do know a little bit about British politics and I think that the parties and the whole (Westminster) political system is very similar to Canadian federal politics as the Conservative party in both countries have many similarities, the NDP is really much like the Lib Dems in term of the targeted electorate and the current Canadian Liberal Party is really much like New Labour in term of the core voting demographics and issues. Also, add the regional parties which are present in both countries (the Bloc Québécois in federal politics and the PQ in provincial politics and the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the House of Commons and devoted assemblies).

BTW, what is the highest score (or targeted ridings) that fourth parties in the UK (such as UKIP, BNP and the Greens) could basically get at the expanse of major parties (Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems).

But you could say that, broadly speaking, the more inner-city and deprived an area is, the more votes a hard-left party would win.

The same demographics applies to the core support of the BNP, which for a majority of them are former Labour voters.

[CCA]

RESPECT can be socially conservative in some ways, especially on ways (such as gay marriage) which can go against the core of the electorate of the party in 2005. BTW, the Canadian Green Party could be considered ''right-wing'' on a few (especially economic) issues. I do know a little bit about British politics and I think that the parties and the whole (Westminster) political system is very similar to Canadian federal politics as the Conservative party in both countries have many similarities, the NDP is really much like the Lib Dems in term of the targeted electorate and the current Canadian Liberal Party is really much like New Labour in term of the core voting demographics and issues. Also, add the regional parties which are present in both countries (the Bloc Québécois in federal politics and the PQ in provincial politics and the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the House of Commons and devoted assemblies).

BTW, what is the highest score (or targeted ridings) that fourth parties in the UK (such as UKIP, BNP and the Greens) could basically get at the expanse of major parties (Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems).

The same demographics applies to the core support of the BNP, which for a majority of them are former Labour voters.

So has the UK 2015 scenario come out??? When and where?

[EGaffney]

BTW, what is the highest score (or targeted ridings) that fourth parties in the UK (such as UKIP, BNP and the Greens) could basically get at the expanse of major parties (Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems).

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. In the historic experience of the last twenty years? None of those parties has ever won a seat at a general election or by-election. At a stretch, you could take their figures from the Euro 2009 elections and run them into a simulator, but that produces ludicrous results because the minor parties don't field a lot of candidates in general elections. In any realistic situation, there is at most one seat at the next election for the Greens (Brighton Pavilion) and even that will probably go to the Tories instead.

[dr abc]

Re: EGaffney

Thanks for your feedback. Adding the Green into a 'melting pot' leftish coalition would make sense, and would also make a better game.

So has the UK 2015 scenario come out??? When and where?

It's England 2015 and is available in his thread.

BTW, what is the highest score (or targeted ridings) that fourth parties in the UK (such as UKIP, BNP and the Greens) could basically get at the expanse of major parties (Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems).

Historically there are usually about 5-10 independents, the fourth parties you've mentioned can get up to 20% in their best areas. The Greens have had a chance at one or two constituencies in the last couple of elections, and the BNP has got in the upper teens in a few. UKIP seems to get more consistent results, and have the largest number of votes (maybe because they stand candidates over the whole country) but are not close to winning anywhere.

I will post this scenario when it's done if anybody is interested.

I will add a Green/Left coalition and strengthen the ENP so there will be four parties which fit on one 'page' + the independents.