393 voters would give Theresa May a General Election majority
Theresa May could recapture a House of Commons majority if just 393 electors changed the votes they cast in the 2017 General Election – 150 times fewer than the number needed to put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.
Westminster rumours this week suggested that the Prime Minister is poised to delay Britain’s exit from the European Union beyond the end of March, before calling an election on June 6 to seek backing for her Brexit deal – rumours denied by Downing Street.
Figures from new democracy app Rate Your Leader demonstrate how just 786 votes in 8 parliamentary constituencies separated Theresa May from a majority in the last General Election –meaning the Prime Minister could govern without support from a minor party if 393 Labour or SNP voters switched to the Conservatives in a new contest.
The constituencies are:
- Kensington – 10 votes needed from Labour
- Perth and North Perthshire – 11 votes needed from the SNP
- Dudley North – 11 votes needed from Labour
- Newcastle under Lyme – 15 votes needed from Labour
- Crewe and Nantwich – 24 votes needed from Labour
- Canterbury – 94 votes needed from Labour
- Barrow and Furness – 154 votes needed from Labour
- Keighley – 125 votes needed from Labour.
Labour meanwhile needs to convince 59,986 voters in 69 constituencies to defect from the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and the SNP to secure an overall parliamentary majority – 152 times as many votes.
10,860 switchers in 23 constituencies could however allow the party to govern in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and Scottish nationalists.
The makers of Rate Your Leader, a new app creating an abuse-proof digital platform to connect voters and politicians, are urging MPs to take the advantage of technology to better engage with their electorate in preparation of a national vote which could occur at any time.
“These figures reveal a fundamental truth about how tight the margins between success and failure is in UK elections, even if a pretty unlikely scenario in which less than 500 voters in an electorate of 46,000,000, change their vote from one election to the other.
“People sometimes think their votes don’t matter, but these figures show that couldn’t be further from the truth. Who knows what would be happening with Brexit, for example, if just 393 people had put a cross an inch higher or lower on their ballot in June 2017 and we now had a completely different Parliament.
“I’m often reminded of the story of MP Rupert Allason who famously failed to tip a waitress during the 1997 election and lost his seat by 12 votes after the staff in the restaurant all voted Liberal Democrat in disgust.
“At both a national and local level, politicians need to take every opportunity to personally engage with the voters, because one voter contact could mean the difference between the Cabinet and the Job Centre”
Rate Your Leader is a global online platform which helps politicians engage only with voters in their constituencies in an abuse-proof way. The technology allows elected leaders to truly understand what matters most to the people who elect them while allowing local people to identify and contact their representatives at the touch of a button, direct from their phones or tablets.
The app, which also allows people to check to see if they are registered to vote and identify their elected representatives at the touch of a button, is free to download from the App store and other app marketplaces.
