“We talk to people who share our values, but maybe in the past they voted Conservatives but in reality they look at us and say ‘you know what, these guys have been consistently strong in these areas.’ Justice Secretary Dominic Raab in Esher and Walton and Jeremy Hunt, currently the front-runner to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Tories, in South West Surrey are high-profile MPs who are threatened if there is a turn to the Liberal Democrats. these positions. The former has just 2,700 majority while the latter has an advantage of 8,800 which was reduced to half of the Liberal Democrats in the 2019 elections. Others at risk on the Liberal Democrats’ marginal list are Conservatives calling for the prime minister to step down, including Steven Hammond at Wimbledon and William Ragg at Hazel Grove. Former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable says: “We have reaffirmed the guerrilla army’s old approach to politics. “We obviously find it very difficult to compete nationally in the first past of the postal system. “But if we concentrate all our resources on places where we are strong or have a potential discovery, we can do spectacular things.” He says any resurgence in the south “is not just a thing overnight”, but the resumption of a recovery that began under his leadership. Sir Vince says all this was “thrown” in the “catastrophic” party elections in 2019 under Jo Swinson, a defeat that attributes to the fears of the middle class for the Workers of Jeremy Corbyn and not to a bad campaign of the Liberal Democrats. One theory is that the political realignment that emerged in the 2019 elections is only half that. Some believe that by driving tanks into Labor grass, the Conservatives have left their own backyard exposed. While working-class Brexit voters are turning blue in the north, the Conservatives in the south face threats on two fronts. Labor voters fleeing the capital to find affordable housing are moving into the Tories, while the Liberal Democrats are gaining ground in pro-Remain and anti-housing areas. A Conservative MP in a shrinking majority in the south avoids speaking publicly about Brexit for fear of defeat. “I have to win a marginal seat and I am not going to win a marginal seat by excluding Remain voters,” he said. “I’m in a position to lean towards Remain with a lot of angry Remain voters and I can not keep postponing them.” Lord Barwell, Theresa May’s No. 10 chief of staff and former Tory minister, agrees that a political reshuffle in Britain has been going on for some time, a shift sweeping other countries, including the United States. “I think for about 20 years, it has been an adjustment in progress. I think Brexit has acted as a catalyst for this, so the socio-economic class is no longer a strong predictor of voting intent. “It simply came to our notice then. “But there is another side to it in London and in some of those places on the South East.” He believes the Conservatives’ counterattacks in the south will be based on a “repeat” of the 2015 election campaign, which fueled fears of a “chaos coalition” led by Ed Miliband Labor. Even so, the main point of contention in Devon is not a major realignment in British politics but Johnson and his No. 10 candidacy. Emma Ranson-Bellamy, owner of the Tiverton Snob clothing store, supports the Lib Dem candidate, saying the party can “bring balance” between the Conservatives and Labor. He says: “If you put a monkey in the palace, the monkey does not become king. The palace becomes a circus. That is exactly what is happening right now. “ While both Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates would prefer to argue that the campaign was about politics and governance, they admit that Partygate comes to the fore repeatedly. Ms Herford, the Conservative candidate, said: “Of course it does. It comes less, especially after this week and the vote of confidence. “I think people really want to stop. We have a cost of living crisis, they want to know what I will do about it. “
