General election: does the weather hold the key to who wins?

With so many seats in the balance, turnout could play a part in deciding who wins – and then, says Sean O'Grady, the rain comes into play...

Washout? The forecast is forbidding (EPA)

One of the great unknowns in the general election (arguably, in fact, actually one of the few, given the Tories’ consistent and substantial lead) is turnout. Not since 1923 have we had an election in December; and not since 1974 have we had to go the polls in winter. The precedents are a bit sketchy, but it could private an important variable in this election.

It is said, for example, that one of the reasons why the 2016 Leave vote was such as surprise was that the polls failed to capture those voters who had given up on politicians and voting for decades, but were suddenly motivated to rebel against a neglectful ruling class by voting to Leave. No matter that some senior members of the ruling class, including of course Boris Johnson, were urging them to do so. These voters, in coastal communities, ex-mining seats and the like, felt “left behind” and, just for a change, they actually turned up at the polling stations. It was them wot won it, you might say.

Now the question is, will they turn out again for Brexit? Well, they seem inclined to. Taking age as a proxy for Leave inclinations, one recent poll put the propensity to vote much in line with what you might expect – the older you are, the more likely you are to vote. YouGov puts the number of potential voters “absolutely certain” to vote among different age groups as follows:

18 to 24: 48%

25 to 34: 56%

35 to 44: 63%

45 to 54: 72%

55 to 64: 77%

65 to 74: 74%

75+: 85%

But what about the “youthquake”? We shall see. At the last general election, it turned out that the impressive swing to Labour then (the biggest since 1945) in fact had little to do with the kids coming out for Corbyn. The British Election Study stated it with brutal clarity: “People aged 18 to 24 make up 11 per cent of the electorate, about 5.2 million people in total. Labour won 3.5 million more votes in 2017 than 2015. If we are wrong about the level of turnout among young people and it is in fact as high as 72 per cent, this would be about 1.2 million more young voters than 2015. Even if every single one of these new voters voted Labour (an absurdly strong assumption) this would only account for about one third of Labour’s vote gains in 2017, and does not take into account countervailing flows away from Labour.”

Of course older and poorer voters (that is, traditionally without as much access to cars and lifts) might find inclement weather and a dark evening an uninviting prospect. And the forecast is fairly forbidding. Voters can expect to be soaked on their way to the polls with bands of heavy rain and wind. Yellow weather warnings have been in place for rain, ice, and wind for most of Scotland and England, and eastern parts of Northern Ireland. Again, whether older and younger voters respectively are more concerned about the NHS or Brexit than getting drenched may turn out to be another differential turnout that could prove important, at least in some seats.

A combination of social class and the closeness of the contest seems to be key. Thus, the highest turnouts in the 2017 elections were in closely fought Con-Lib Dem marginal seats in prosperous areas: Twickenham (79.5 per cent); Oxford West and Abingdon (79.4 per cent); Richmond Park (79.1 per cent); and Winchester (78.8 per cent). By contrast the lowest turnouts were in poorer districts and had been safe Labour seats: Glasgow North East (53 per cent; Leeds central (53.2 per cent); Glasgow East (54.6 per cent); and West Bromwich West (54.7 per cent)

Nationally, voter turnout has been creeping up in recent contests. It has risen steadily, in fact, over general elections, and the EU referendum and Brexit has obviously intensified voter engagement with the political process:

2005 general election: 61.4%

2010 general election: 65.1%

2015 general election: 66.1%

2016 EU referendum: 72.2%

2017 general election: 68.7%

In one of the elections was the weather especially balmy or nasty, and much of the variation in turnout at this level is down to political motivation (notably at the 2016 referendum – when every vote counted equally across the nation). But it also depended on the voters’ perceptions about how tight the contest is, and how important it is. The 2014 Scottish independence referendum, for example, saw turnout soar to 84.6 per cent in that crucial “once in a lifetime” poll; European parliamentary election used to normally see much lower turnouts.

If the voters confidently think their party is bound to win, or indeed certain to lose, especially in their own constituency, that can affect their calculation of whether to go out in the wet or stay in and watch Netflix or Coronation Street.

Even so, and even with all the tumult of recent years, the average British citizen was both more tribal in their party loyalties, and much more likely to do their civic duty. In the 1951 election, for example, it peaked at 82.5 per cent, and even in the fairly predictable Blair landslide of 1997 it was still 77.7 per cent. Even with easier registration and wider use of postal votes, turnout is still lower than it used to be. (Changes to the system for registering students in 2014 actually made it harder for them to get onto the electoral rolls).

Two final thoughts; differential turnout will become a much more politically charged issue if the Conservatives win and press on with their plan for compulsory voter ID at polling stations. If, on the other hand, the opposition parties support a different government, proportional representation may make another entry in our crowded political discourse.