2019-05-18

Another Election Shock in Australia, Brexit Party Surges in Westminster Poll

Labor was expected to win, but instead the Liberals have hung on to a divided government.

AFR: The ultimate election guide
There is no overriding national mood for change but nor is there a strong appetite for the status quo, leaving it a seat-by-seat race with local issues, sentiment and candidates playing a critical role. Labor has long been ahead in opinion polls but the race has tightened.
The division is clearest in the Senate.

AFR: Election 2019: Coalition vote surges, Labor cannot form government
The new Senate

Political Editor Phil Coorey says the Senate count, while not final, looks like:

34 LNP Senators,
27 Labor,
nine Greens,
two One Nation,
two Centre Alliance
Jacqui Lambie and Cory Bernardi.

The government needs five extra votes to secure the 39 votes needed to secure its tax cuts and other legislation.
Note that if Labor shifted on immigration, it might have enough votes to take the Senate. Something to think about moving forward given Denmark's shift. In many countries there is dividend government because the two main parties/coalitions refuse to budge on issues that have rising support with the public, which leads to not only surprise elections, but surprise governments.

AFR: The biggest losers in a shock election result
This year's election has produced plenty of big losers: Bill Shorten, Tony Abbott, Clive Palmer, SportsBet.

But one of the biggest will be opinion pollsters. All the major media polls including The Australian Financial Review's Ipsos, Newspoll and Nine's election day exit poll all put Labor's two-party preferred lead at 51-52 per cent.

...However, there is one aspect where the polling was accurate, and that was Shorten's personal unpopularity.

Many in Labor will be asking the "what if" question that if they had a more popular leader - namely Anthony Albanese - as the front man would they find themselves in power?
Meanwhile over in the UK, no surprise that the Brexit Party is expected to win big in the European elections.

Metro UK: Brexit Party favourite to win votes in European elections, says poll
Nigel Farage’s party has doubled its support in the last fortnight – now in first place – and is now on track to get 34 per cent of the votes in this month’s elections. The latest Opinium poll shows Labour come in second place with 21 per cent of votes, falling seven points in the last two weeks, while the Tories lag behind in fourth place with 11 per cent. The Lib Dems are in third position with 12 per cent, having risen five points.
This is no surprise as UKIP pulled off surprise wins in European and local elections previously. What is surprising is the Brexit Party's polling for the next British national election (Westminster voting intentions).

BMG Research: BMG’s European Parliament and Westminster Voting Intention Results: May 2019
The poll shows that the Labour Party are in the lead for the first time since 2018, with a vote share of 30%. This a drop of 4% from April, and has then 3 percentage points above the Conservatives. The Conservative party have a predicted vote share of 27%, recording a reduction of 7% from last month.

Following on from a positive performance in the local elections, the Liberal Democrats predicted vote share is up 7 percentage points from last month on 18%. The Brexit Party enter BMG’s Westminster tracker with a vote share of 10%. Change UK and UKIP find themselves with just 3% of the vote share each.
Brexit Party polled at 6 percent in the April poll.

Britain Elects: How are the polls looking?
I suspect Brexit Party support is closer to 10 percent than 20 percent. Upstart and outsider parties have often under performed their polling, and there's no reason to think Brexit Party won't also follow that pattern, until it doesn't. Additionally, if the UK ever gets around to leaving the EU, support for the Brexit Party could vanish if it doesn't disband itself, as seems likely. Still, in the near term, a big Brexit Party win in European elections will give their leadership a platform and a loud voice in ongoing Brexit negotiations and debates.The potential for a surge into competition with Labor and Tories is not out of the question. If you remember your recent history and not the media narrative, UKIP started on the issue of an EU membership referendum and shifted to immigration after talking with voters. If the Brexit Party takes an entrepreneurial approach to the next national election, it might find one or two other ignored topics that will attract enough support to push it into the next government or make it the main opposition to another Tory-Labour coalition.

No comments:

Post a Comment