Major Parties Braced For "Three Way" Battle For The South West At The General Election

The South West is gearing up for a tight “three-way contest” between Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives at the next general election, as both opposition parties seek to oust incumbent Tories.

Several pollsters have predicted that the region could become a “patchwork” of Tory blue, Labour red and Lib Dem yellow seats after the election, creating a “very different” picture to that of current Tory dominance.

In a region that stretches west from the Cotswolds, down to Cornwall in the far southwest corner of England, and takes in cities such as Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth, as well as rural counties including Somerset, Devon and Dorset, the electoral map was a sea of blue after the 2019 general election. The Conservatives won 48 of the 55 seats available, compared to Labour’s six and the Liberal Democrats’ one.

But five years later, the Conservatives’ dominance has started to dwindle, after Labour won a by-election in Kingswood in February, and the Lib Dems won by-elections in Tiverton and Homerton and Somerton and Frome.

With national polling showing a significant steer away from Conservative voting intention, it is widely expected that the by-election losses won't be the last seats the Tories lose in the region. According to an MRP poll released by YouGov this week, Labour is set to gain 14 seats from the Conservatives across the South West at the general election, which must be called this year, and could knock out Conservative heavyweights including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Robert Buckland. The Liberal Democrats are set to gain 13 from Rishi Sunak’s Tory party, from Cornwall through to the Cotswolds. 

Patrick English, director of political analytics at YouGov told PoliticsHome that he expects “there to be more of a