May’s focus on a land-grab in the North left ‘safe’ seats vulnerable
THERESA MAY travelled widely across Britain over the election campaign, investing most of her time in marginal Labour-held seats. By wooing Labour’s northern heartlands, Mrs May hoped to crush the Opposition and build herself a considerable majority.
However, her attempted land grab seems to have backfired, as many of those marginal seats returned Labour MPS by even bigger margins than before. The Prime Minister flew in by helicopter to deliver her first address of the campaign at Walmsley Parish Hall, in Bolton, but that did little good as the local constituency returned its Labour MP with a 3,800 majority.
The Conservative leader made appearances in Halifax, West Lancashire and Hyndburn, all of them Labour-held constituencies, yet her visits failed to stop them from becoming redder this week.
Her campaign’s focus on Labour marginals in the North had an unintended consequence: less time and attention was spent on defending the Tories’ own heartlands in the South from attack. The Conservatives may have thought that they didn’t need to worry about Labour making in-roads there, but many constituencies were vulnerable as they had sizable populations that had voted against Brexit last June. This meant that Jeremy Corbyn’s party could exploit their concerns about Mrs May’s Brexit plans for their own gain.
Some of the seats saw high-profile Conservative casualties. In Croydon Central, an area which had approximately half of its residents vote in favour of staying in the European Union, housing minister Gavin Barwell lost his seat. Labour managed to oust Treasury minister Jane Ellison, a lieutenant of Chancellor Philip Hammond, from Battersea (78 per cent Remain-voting) despite her having built up a majority of nearly 8,000 votes.
Mrs May was rightly ambitious in her election campaign efforts. However, it appears that she focused her attention so thoroughly on areas like Halifax that she didn’t think she would come under threat in places like Canterbury. Given the eventual election result, she may well be regretting that decision.