Rosie win not just down to students

In 2017, Rosie Duffield may have won because she was the ABB (“Anybody but Brazier”) candidate.

In 2019, the surge in Conservative support across east Kent should have swept her away – as the prediction after the exit poll that there was an 88% chance of Canterbury going Conservative showed.

In the event, Rosie Duffield increased her share of the vote by 3.3% while Labour candidates in the five neighbouring constituencies suffered on average a fall in their share of the vote of 6.4%. This 10% discrepancy suggests that at least 6,000 of Rosie’s 29,018 votes were not Labour votes. A comparison with the rest of east Kent suggests that over 2,000 Conservatives voted for Rosie and over 3,500 Liberal Democrats and Greens.

Rosie’s increased majority cannot be explained simply by a large student vote. While Rosie would not have won if there were no students in Canterbury, in other constituencies with a large student vote the Lib Dems did very much better than in Canterbury, and Labour rather worse.

While the student vote almost certainly split in Labour’s favour in Canterbury as it did in York and Cambridge, rather than to the Lib Dems as it did in Oxford, there clearly has been a Lib Dem revival in student support since the low point of 2015. Further, the collapse in the Conservative vote in last year’s Canterbury North county by-election, the local elections and September’s Chestfield by-election cannot be

explained by the university vote. As one might expect, Whitstable was plastered with posters supporting Rosie or the Labour Party. However, the large number of window posters with a prominent “Stick by Rosie” message on display round Canterbury and the demand for non-party Rosie badges showed her substantial support in the cathedral city as well. Unlike most other constituencies, here in Canterbury voters were willing to display their allegiance publicly. To put this all in context, in 2015 the Conservatives won city seats on the council, including John Brazier in Westgate Ward.

Last Thursday we did something few other constituencies did: we disregarded party labels and re-elected an MP who has spoken and voted as she told us she would in 2017 and, with the help of the excellent staff she has appointed, done a great deal to help those who have come to her with problems.