New tool suggests how to vote ‘tactically’ to prevent Tory election win. But not everyone agrees…
Without tactical voting the tool predicts a Conservative majority
A new voting tool has been launched with the aim of revealing how many pro-Remain voters need to use their vote tactically to prevent the Conservatives from winning a majority at the upcoming election.
Best for Britain, the organisation fighting to stop Brexit by any democratic means, launched the voting tool on 30 October predicting that if 30% of pro-Remain voters were tactical with their vote, it would stop the Tories from winning a majority at the likely upcoming election.
It’s based on a seat-by-seat analysis of 46,000 British people, carried out by Best for Britain in September and October.
The analysis predicts the number of seats that will be won by each party in different tactical voting scenarios.
However the tool has come under criticism from some Remainers and Labour activists.
Journalist Owen Jones tweeted:
Despite criticism, Best for Britain urges people to follow its advice, saying it would only take 30% of pro-Remain voters to use their vote tactically for parties in favour of a Final Say or stopping Brexit to win a majority in Parliament.
If this scenario were to happen, there would be a coalition of Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Green and Plaid Cymru holding a majority of four seats.
If 40% of pro-Remain voters were tactical, then 87 seats could swing away from the Conservatives and the coalition would have a majority of 36 seats.
The tool revealed just how important tactical voting is for the upcoming election as a coalition consisting of exactly the same parties could end up with only 268 seats combined to the Tories’ 364-seat majority because voters would be ineffectually split.
Best for Britain’s tool went live last night within hours of the vote for a general election and can be found at getvoting.org.
The tool found the following highlights:
- If no tactical voting occurs, the Conservatives will win 364 seats, Labour would win 189 seats, Lib Dems would win 23 seats, Plaid would win 3 seats and the Greens would win 1 seat (Conservative majority of 44).
- If Remain voters use their vote tactically, however, this will change. We predict that it would take only 30% of pro-Remain voters to use their vote tactically for pro-Remain parties to swing the election and deprive Boris Johnson of a majority.
- Under this scenario, the Conservatives would win 309 seats, Labour would win 233 seats, Lib Dems would win 34 seats, Plaid would win 4 and the Greens would win 1 seat (pro-Remain majority of 4).
- If 40% of pro-Remain voters use their vote tactically, the Conservatives would win 277 seats, Labour would win 255 seats, Lib Dems would win 44 seats, Plaid would win 4 seats and the Greens would win 1 seat (pro-Remain majority of 36).
Best for Britain CEO Naomi Smith said: “99 per cent of polls this year have shown that the country is in favour of remaining in the European Union.
“However, through our first-past-the-post electoral system, we could still end up with a pro-Brexit majority in the House of Commons, elected on a minority of the vote share.
“We can’t change this system, but we can change how we vote, and we’ve found that four out of five voters are up for this.
“That’s why Best for Britain has commissioned the biggest tactical voting machine in the country and the results are clear. If we want to stop the disaster that is Brexit, we must vote tactically in the next general election.”
Lucy Skoulding is a freelance reporter at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter.
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