London should be Labour's for the taking. But it isn't. Why?

While the polls show a comfortable Conservative lead nationally, surely London – as the only English region to vote Remain in 2016 – is a disaster area for the Tories? Labour vies to unseat Iain Duncan Smith, and even the PM himself in Uxbridge. The Lib Dems have positioned floor-crossing MPs Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna in Conservative flagship seats, and Sam Gyimah in Kensington. Liberal-leaning London commentators lament the narrowing of the Conservative brand. The hostility of Carrie Symonds’s Leftist neighbours and the Labour-supporting father who challenged the PM at Whipps Cross Hospital seem to confirm all the stereotypes.

Yet in four of the past six You Gov political trackers, covering October, the Conservatives were either in the lead, or one point off it, among London voters.

What’s really going on? Some London Conservatives, who tend towards pro-immigration and libertarian positions are out of humour with the Government’s “nationalism and strange kind of autarky”, as one former councillor puts it. Post-referendum Conservative activists aren’t the same people as previously, suggests one long-standing Tory ‘Heathite’.

But Owen Meredith, of the One Nation-backing Tory Reform Group, who helped man the party’s phone bank for the European elections, argues London Conservatives are pragmatic, recognising we are where we are with the Withdrawal Agreement, with plenty of discussion to come on the future relationship. Lord True, former council leader of Remain-supporting Richmond, thinks that the issue for voters now is not just Brexit but what kind of Britain we want. “Paradoxically, Soft Remain is there to be taken,” he says, if the Conservatives fight an “intelligent campaign” based on policy and hope; voters also have a much more crystallised sense of what Corbyn in power would mean. Conservative private polling shows the Tories hanging on to 7 in 10 of their 2017 voters but Labour to only 5 in 10 of theirs, with three times as many Labour voters moving to the Lib Dems.

Conservatives might be saved by local factors. Wimbledon’s Tory Remainers will come to Stephen Hammond’s aid against the Lib Dems, and even Zac Goldsmith might cling on with his 45 majority because he’s a respected constituency MP. With no sign yet that Lib Dem and Labour candidates would stand down for each other, Tories could win through a split in the Remain vote in Hampstead & Kilburn and Battersea, while in Leave-backing Carshalton, Conservatives will target Lib Dem Tom Brake’s 1369 majority.

Buoyed by a 300 per cent membership rise since June 2016, the Lib Dems’ position in London is transformed. The party is energised by its clarity on Brexit, a top place finish in London at the European elections and defections of councillors and activists. In addition to Finchley, Cities of London and Westminster and Kensington, Lib Dems hope to regain Richmond Park and former strongholds like Bermondsey, and sweep into heavily Remain Putney and even Chelsea, where their candidate is Nicola Horlick.

The challenge is that the party comes from so far behind in many areas – eg. 11.6 per cent in Putney in 2017 – that it could achieve big swings without winning many seats. “Talking up” chances suggests to some tactical carelessness. The demographics of Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster make it tough for the Lib Dems to win. Other difficulties include passing peak popularity (there’s already been slippage in the polls), Tories pushing the Vote Lib Dem, Get Corbyn message hard, and the party’s support for Revoke seeming extreme.

Labour retains Remain voters’ loyalties in much of the capital, tends to have large majorities where it faces a Lib Dem challenge, and by and large, holds continued appeal to the one in three London voters from ethnic minorities, whose prime concerns are jobs and the economy. Awareness of tactical voting is growing: “people understand once they see the figures”, says Faiza Shaheen, who has won over Lib Dem and Green supporters to help campaign against Iain Duncan Smith.

The party might decapitate IDS in Chingford and Theresa Villiers in Chipping Barnet, and should return a Labour MP to Streatham. It could, however, lose Battersea, Kensington and Hampstead through a splitting of the Remain vote. And it is conceivable it could lose both Leave seats on the eastern fringe of London and Remain constituencies like volatile Hornsey & Wood Green, potentially ending up with fewer London seats.

Far from a Corbynite revolution everywhere, a variety of candidates have been selected for vacancies, including moderates Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) and Feryal Clark (Enfield). Corbyn critics caution that in target seat Harrow East, the local party’s affiliation with anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Labour and the candidate’s position on Kashmir will repel Jewish and Hindu voters, while fallout from controversies such as the chaotic selection meeting in Poplar surely rebounds on the party’s image.

The churn of new voters moving to areas especially in suburban Zones 3-5 adds uncertainty. If the Brexit Party stands everywhere as threatened, it might spell trouble for Conservatives in seats like Chingford and Sutton & Cheam by splitting the Leave vote: but will Farage’s quixotic position on the Brexit deal continue to lose support? There’s no sign in the capital yet of Remain alliance agreements between Greens and Lib Dems as there was in Richmond Park when Zac Goldsmith was unseated.

Thus contrary to expectations, the party that gains most in London might be the Conservatives. Meanwhile, Tory success in the Midlands and North is more likely to come through incremental recapture of seats last held in the 2015 or 2010 Parliament, plus some close marginals, than wholesale conversion of Labour Leave areas – and even a much weaker shift to Labour than that in 2017 could set the whole Conservative strategy off course. Next May’s London mayoral election may not be the Sadiq Khan v Shaun Bailey or Khan v Rory Stewart fight commentators seem to anticipate, but an unpredictable multi-candidate race coming down to second preferences.

Our politics feels deeply polarised. Let’s not compound this with overly stark analysis. Each UK region is its own complex patchwork, and the outcome of December’s election will be as much to do with trade-offs, gradual trends and chance, as a definitive clash of ideologies.