The Maths

In 2017, after the Brexit referendum and after Jeremy Corbyn became leader, 3.5 million more people voted Labour than in 2015. Labour won an additional 30 seats and came within a few thousand votes of leading a coalition government.
Since 2017, 1.3 million young people have turned 18 and become eligible to vote for the first time. A similar number of elderly people will have died during that time. And even with record turn-out in 2017, more than 14 million people still did not vote - more than the total number voting for either of the major parties (13 million voted Tory and 12 million voted Labour).

So is it possible that Labour could win another 30 seats and form a coalition government on 13 December? Of course it is! It is even possible that Labour could win an additional 64 seats to form a majority government.

This is a simple question of maths
Because of a whole host of complicating factors, the outcome of the coming election is utterly unpredictable. National opinion polls mean almost nothing in this context, since what happens in a host of individual constituencies is what will determine the result.

Nevertheless, it is entirely possible for Jeremy Corbyn to become Prime Minister on 13th December if just a handful of people in a few key constituencies decide they are going to vote to survive.

Out of 650 seats in the House of Commons, just over 200 are considered ‘safe Tory seats’ and just under 200 of them are ‘safe Labour seats.’ Even at the height of Mrs. Thatcher’s reign, Labour had more than 200 seats in parliament. And after Tony Blair’s landslide election of 1997, the Tories still had 165 seats. The SNP in Scotland and the DUP in Northern Ireland have half a dozen ‘safe seats’ each, and the Liberal Democrats currently have 3 safe seats.

What this means is that only about 200 out of 650 seats are really ‘up for grabs’ at this election. In reality the number likely to change hands is much smaller than this. In the 2017 election, just 53 seats changed hands, with a net gain of 30 seats for the Labour Party. In 2015, a total of 75 seats changed hands, of which 50 were gains for the SNP in Scotland.

In this election, Labour is within reach of taking up to 100 seats from the Conservatives and forming a majority government. Even if it won only an additional 28 seats – fewer than it did in 2017 – it would be in a position to form a government in coalition with the SNP and other smaller parties.

As in every other recent election, the key to victory is (1) convincing people to actually turn out and vote in key constituencies where the number of non-voters vastly exceeds the number who vote Tory. Three other groups of people hold the key to this election: (2) first-time voters, (3) university students and (4) those who tend to vote for smaller “progressive” parties even when those parties have absolutely no chance of winning that particular seat.

Despite some places where Green candidates stood down in order to avoid their vote actually helping the Conservatives to win that seat, in at least 3 constituencies a vote for the Green Party in 2017 did just that. In Calder Valley, for instance, the Conservatives held on with a majority of 609 while 631 people voted Green and another 1,034 voted for an independent. And in Belfast South, the DUP (which went on to prop up the minority Conservative government) took the seat from SDLP (a Labour-leaning party) with a majority of 1,996 while 2,241 people voted Green in that constituency.

There are 18 constituencies in this election where a vote for the Green Party, or other smaller parties with no chance of winning that seat, is a vote for the Conservatives instead of a vote to survive.

There are a further 16 constituencies in which the Tory majority is smaller than the number of full-time students in that constituency. If students mobilise to vote and to vote to survive, those constituencies can turn Labour (or in some cases, SNP).

And there are 12 constituencies in which the Tory majority is smaller than even the number of first-time voters who have turned 18 since the last election in 2017. If young first-time voters decide to vote and to vote to survive, those constituencies are within even easier reach of winning for Labour or the SNP.

Finally, there are up to 60 additional seats that could be prized away from the Conservatives if more people who actually care about their future decided to vote at all, and to vote Labour (or SDLP or Alliance in Northern Ireland or SNP in parts of Scotland). These 60 seats are listed here, and these are the fourth target group of key constituencies.

Of course, it is also essential for Labour to hold onto the seats they already have. Up to 64 of these seats are at risk because of the large percentage of people who voted for Brexit in that constituency and might decide to vote Tory or Brexit Party instead of Labour. In those constituencies, it is vital to get out the vote for Labour and mobilise all the groups of voters mentioned above.

There are only 4 constituencies where Remainers, as opposed to Hard Brexiteers, could pose a risk to existing Labour seats. In these constituencies, it is more important than ever to stress the need to vote Labour, not only to survive, but also to get the result they want from Brexit, since a vote for the LibDems is actually a vote for another Tory government committed to Brexit at any price.