Sure, UKIP voters returning to Labour after they'd made a manifesto commitment to a meaningful Brexit was certainly a factor too.
Of course there's plenty more than Brexit at play. The disaster of the housing market and a sense that austerity (while once a necessity) has gone on for too long, for kick off.
But as you yourself have just acknowledged, not everyone votes for who they want to actually win. My assumption is that enough people would "punish" the Tories in the event of a downturn to make Labour the largest party. Even if this manifested merely in a low turn-out for the Tories it could push Labour over the line.
Which kind of suggests that Cameron's pledge was the difference between the two parties in 2015. That is hugely worrying for Conservative HQ.
The housing market thing is hilariously tragic. THe notion that we are short of millions of houses is pretty laughable if only for the very obvious fact that if we were, millions of people would be homeless.
THe shortage is to do with the millions of properties in the hands of private landlords and the fact that the way the market works means that if you dont own you are on the wrong side of it. A fifth of houses are owned by private landlords, including 40% of houses sold under 'right to buy'.
Building new houses wont solve this. Within a few years a huge chunk of those new houses will be sat in the hands of the same landlords.
If you want to tackle the housing shortage, tackle that.
I don't really buy this, I'm afraid. It's based on far too many imaginative leaps. How big is the downturn (if it even happens)? I've no idea what state the Labour Party will be in by 2022, for instance. Also, I doubt the Brexit wound will be anywhere near as raw in 2022 as it was in 2017.
Nonsense. THis has always been a factor, largely due to Labour's popularity in smaller, inner city constituencies. THis did not start with Blair.
What I did wildly underestimate is the huge unpopularity of Blair, his war and his chums in the party, which is yet another reason why the 2010 result was such a massive disappointment for the Conservatives.
I havent even mentioned the collapse of the Lib Dems yet. Another factor in voter realignment. THe Lib Dems had held my seat since 1997, quite comfortably. They lost it in 2015 and Labour, a distant third with a minute proportion of the vote now sit second, missing the seat in the last election by just 4000 or so.
But with Momentum gaining a firmer and firmer grip on the party's throat, surely a point will come where 'moderate' Labour MPs will no longer be prepared to stand for the anti-semitism, the lunatic economic 'policies' and the extreme fringe identity politics?
A new, centrist, pro-EU party, led by Soubry, Ummuna and some SDP moron, would surely split the Labour vote enough to see it consigned to the wilderness? lease:
I thought this was an excellent article on Corbynism. Yes, in the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ur-leader-left