Comment: How Remain-Backing Guildford Elected a Leave Tory, Part Three

Published on: 19 Dec, 2019
Updated on: 21 Dec, 2019

By Martin Giles

From Bonfire Night to Armistice Day, six days in November, that sealed Guildford’s election result.

Nov 5: Expelled Conservative Anne Milton announced she was to stand as an Independent. This was bad news for the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. Ms Milton’s rebel stance against any Brexit no-deal meant very few Leavers would now support her, but how many Remain-leaning Conservatives and the many constituents she had helped over her 14 parliamentary years would stay with her?

Nov 7: Lib Dems revealed they had agreed an anti-Brexit election pact. Guildford was among 43 constituencies where Green Party and Plaid Cymru agreed not to stand.

Mark Bray-Parry

Not every Remainer was entirely happy, including the Green’s Mark Bray-Parry. He was not going to be campaigning for Zoe but did wish her “all the best”.

Nov 8: I asked Joe Domican, the Brexit candidate, “Are you definitely going to stand here?” For Nigel Farage’s party to split the Leave vote seemed counter-productive, although they clearly had reservations about the Conservative version of Brexit. Mr Domican said: “As people start to unravel the Boris treaty it will become more understood and less acceptable as a Brexit answer.” And he confirmed he was still in the fight. “I am in the process of filling in my nomination forms.”

Joe Domican

Nov 11: Shortly after the 11am Armistice Day ceremony in the High Street, national news reported Nigel Farage was standing down 320 Brexit Party candidates in seats where Conservatives had won in 2017. That obviously included Guildford. As soon as I heard, I fired a text to Joe: “Reaction to Farage statement, please?”

Clearly, he had been caught by surprise but by 3.30pm he issued this statement: “I am obviously disappointed at not standing for the Brexit Party for Guildford but I can agree with the logic of not splitting the Leave vote, especially since the Green Party has now aligned with the Remain vote.”

We could all understand the logic so I asked Zoe Franklin for her reaction. She had not had confirmation that Brexit was standing down. I said their candidate had told me it was true. That must have been a blow to her although perhaps neither of us realised the full significance.

The unification of the Leave vote was critical. In effect, the Lib Dems had just lost. Mr Farage had ensured a Conservative victory here but we didn’t yet know it.

In just six days, we had gone from seven candidates to five but, more vitally, from two Leave candidates to one, leaving the Remain vote to be split among the other four candidates.

The five left standing. Candidates for Guildford, General Election 2019.

With the Brexit Party leaving the field, Angela Richardson only had to gather the Conservative votes from the 46% in Guildford who chose Leave in the 2016 referendum and she would surely win. But it wasn’t quite that simple.

First, the EU membership referendum was three years in the past, and far more information had emerged. So what was the Leave/Remain split in Guildford now?

Second, reports reached me that the Conservative campaign resources were small, many members were older and unable to do too much in the way of door-knocking and leafleting. Their team might have been smaller than the Lib Dems and even what appeared to be the well-organised Labour team.

Third, Boris Johnson is not universally popular among Tories. How might that affect their campaign?

What was clear was that the size of the Labour and Milton votes would be critical: the bigger their shares the bigger the problem for the Lib Dems.

The constituency’s respect and sympathy shown for Ms Milton was not necessarily going to translate into votes but she was the natural home for those fed up with the whole political shooting-match, unless they were Leavers, and a significant number probably were.

That the Labour vote would be squeezed seemed inevitable. They did their best to resist it but many Labour supporters felt voting Lib Dem offered the best chance of defeating the Conservative candidate and opposing Brexit,

I wanted to interview Ms Richardson. She was a parish councillor in Cranleigh and had been a party activist. She had been responsible for overseeing the ill-fated Guildford Borough Council local election campaign but its failure could hardly be blamed on her. And to the voters of Guildford she was largely unknown.

She told me I could interview her at the Royal Surrey County Hospital and she would be with the Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

Sec of State for Health with Dragon editor Martin Giles

Nov 12: On arrival, Dragon team member Hugh Coakley and I reported to Reception and said we were there for the Secretary of State’s official visit. Blank looks. No one was expecting him. In the middle of the interview, a posse of managers emerged and started to speak with some animation to his assembled entourage.

Anxious to get the story published, Hugh and I quickly left but as we were going I saw Mr Hancock and Ms Richardson do an abrupt about-turn and retreat. I felt I had missed the story of the Health Secretary being turned away at the hospital door.

Zoe Franklin interview

Nov 15: Three days later, I interviewed Ms Franklin. I pointed out Guildford was obviously a Remain-voting constituency, the Green candidate had withdrawn in her favour, the “People’s Vote” nomination was hers and Ms Milton’s decision would split the Tory vote. “This election is yours to lose, isn’t it?” I said.

That’s how it seemed then. But a week later, a different picture emerged.

Nov 23: Hugh had suggested we conduct a poll. Three of us were asking the six questions. We wanted to obtain the views of sample 100 Guildford voters, not as easy as it seems. Most people are too busy or just don’t want to talk but about three hours later we had our sample.

The result was not what we had anticipated. I was unsurprised that the Lib Dems and Conservatives were in the lead but I did not anticipate support for Labour and Ms Milton would be so far behind. Now, this looked that it was just a two-horse race, and they were neck and neck.

The poll, admittedly a tiny sample, was criticised by some. Yet, interestingly, a University of Surrey professor of politics thought it probably was a valid local indicator.

Nov 28: A few days later, a YouGov MRP Poll also showed a two-horse race here but with a narrow lead for the Conservatives. This poll proved to be extraordinarily accurate.

Dec 2: Anne Milton’s High Street campaigning reported by Hugh was obviously being very well received. Those she spoke to found it hard to resist her charm. We wondered if the polls were wrong.

At hustings held by the university and The Dragon, little emerged to change minds. At both, the audiences seemed predominantly pro-Remain and, as it turned out, unrepresentative. But Leavers are, generally, less passionate. At the Dragon event, Ms Richardson came under fire but remained steady. She was on a steep learning curve and she was climbing it.

The Guildford Dragon hustings.

The Lib Dem campaign kept going till the end. Their answer to the unified Leave support was paper, avalanches of it, leaflets in various guises pouring through our letterboxes, sometimes more than one a day.

The Labour Party criticised the accuracy of the contents, some of the bar graphs did seem misleading and criticised the Lib Dem “Gazette” pretending to be a newspaper.

Do people read this stuff? I said in an opinion piece this could be counter-productive, annoying recipients rather than persuading them. I still believe that.

Some of the Lib Dem leaflets General Election 2019

If elections were won by the visibility level of campaigns, the Lib Dems would have romped it, swamped as we were with paper. Even on the eve of the election, their party leader, Jo Swinson, made a hit-and-run visit to help make a final push.

Yet their choice of venue seemed strange, Jacob’s Well Village Hall, with an audience of campaigners and an onlooking pack of, mainly, national press.

This was a carefully managed event for cameras, not for Ms Swinson to press the flesh and talk to real Guildfordians. But hats off to her for not giving up. Those hours spent on a tour of Surrey might have been better spent defending her own seat in Scotland, lost by fewer than 200 votes.

Angela Richardson said that when she came to the count in the early hours of December 13, she truly did not know if she had won, but Zoe Franklin did. Her body language could not be misinterpreted. She knew one of the best chances the Lib Dems will ever have to take Guildford again had just gone.

Angela Richardson the new MP for Guildford

This was no fault of hers. She had put heart and soul into her campaign but the vote was not about the quality of the candidates, but simply whether the Leave vote in Guildford would hang together.

Largely, it did. The 44.9% Tory vote was remarkably close to the 46% Leave vote in 2016. The 54%, on the other hand, was divided.

Why couldn’t Ms Milton make more ground? She was the most articulate and knowledgeable candidate but while many respected her stance she was not really in the fight. Or perhaps she was? Her 4,356 votes added to the Lib Dems 22,980 would have won the day. But would they all have voted Lib Dem if Ms Milton had not stood? Unlikely.

Guildford General Election result 2019 – Wikipedia

The Labour vote was always going to be squeezed. But that was not their only problem. For many, Jeremy Corbyn was anathema. During our poll, some Remainers admitted they were going to vote Conservative to “keep Corbyn out”.

Some in the Labour Party are now blaming the media. I don’t think that is their problem. Boris Johnson took a lot of flak in some quarters too. Anyway, most people do not even take a newspaper these days. Fewer than eight million are sold daily. The real problem for them is recognising the difference between their membership and popular support. Unless they do it is hard to see them winning another general election.

UK newspaper circulation 1956-2019 Source Wikipedia

This election was a judgement of the two potential prime ministers and, whatever the serious reservations many still have about Boris Johnson, he was always going to be preferred to Mr Corbyn.

But this is The Guildford Dragon. What effect will this result have on Guildford? Ms Richardson says she has a shortlist of issues: traffic congestion, GP surgery provision and homelessness. We would all wish her success with those.

But the Local Plan has been notable by its absence from the campaign. Strong feelings about it do remain. Ms Richardson is a Local Plan supporter. Perhaps the Plan was as much a winner as Brexit?