UK election 2019: Fraction of Britons to decide poll

Tactical voting activists believe as few as one-hundredth of one per cent of Britons will decide Thursday’s UK general election.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn at a rally in Bristol. Picture: AP

Tactical voting activists believe as few as one-hundredth of one per cent of Britons will decide Thursday’s UK general election.

Best for Britain, a Remain lobby group, says that if 40,704 people vote tactically and switch their preferences, usually between Liberal Democrat to Labour, the Conservatives will be denied a working majority government.

This projection is using in-depth polling figures which show the Conservatives on a national count, are around eight points ahead in the British first-past-the-post electoral system.

However political analysts say such a lead – depending on where the votes are cast – could result in a hung parliament or a massive Tory win.

Psephologist Lewis Baston said: “If you look at the relationship between seats and votes you can get very different number of seats for the same share of vote.

“A percentage of 40-43 which is what the Tories are polling at the moment can result as little as 219 seats or over 400.’’

There are 650 seats up for grabs in the election, which will be held on Thursday December 12. There are 46 million registered voters, but voting is not compulsory.

Best for Britain chief executive Naomi Smith said there were 36 seats that can benefit from tactical voting, which means voters switch their vote from the party they prefer to the party that can beat the Tory candidate in their constituency. She says the Tory lead can be neutered because of the big impact so few people can have.

Ms Smith said if just 82 people in the seat of Dewsbury – the most likely seat to beat the Tories with tactical voting – or in another 35 seats which need up to 2500 tactical voters, it will severely damage the Tory lead.

“It is game on,’’ Ms Smith said on Monday.

“1131 is the average number of votes needed in each constituency – that's 40704 nationally and that means just one hundredth of a per cent of people voting tactically stops Boris Johnson from getting a majority’’.

She said if the tactical voting campaign is successful, the prediction the Conservatives would win 345 would drop to 309 seats, with Labour winning 255, Liberal Democrats 14, the Greens one seat, Plaid Cymru three seats and the Scottish Nationalists 49 seats.

The seats most amenable to tactical voting include Yorkshire and the Humber area such as Dewsbury and the Colne Valley, and the Midlands seats like West Bromwich West and Wolverhampton South West.

Best For Britain and another pro-Remain lobby group The Peoples’ Vote, agree on the tactical voting position of nearly all seats. The one that is proving difficult is the three way fight in Kensington, which is currently held by Labour with a majority of 26.

Ms Smith said the Tories had benefited enormously from the Brexit Party’s withdrawal from Tory-held seats. But Labour, which wants a second referendum, and the Liberal Democrats, which want to revoke Brexit, failed to agree and are contesting against each other and splitting the vote in scores of seats, allowing a potential Tory victory.

“We are not telling people who to vote, offering them a platform to tell them how to stop Brexit. If that is their key driver then they come to our site to find that out,’’ Ms Smith said.

“We are giving people a way to vote looking at the data, rather than what gets drop through their letterbox’’.

The impact and influence of the tactical voting sites is believed to be significant.

Nearly four million people have accessed the Best for Britain website.

Ms Smith said the very public squabbling between Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swanson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn “hasn’t been helpful at all’’ so she said ‘’groups like ours have to fill the void to stop Johnson’’.