As the Government withdraws its Brexit Bill from the House of Commons, and the nation prepares itself to have Christmas shopping spoiled by a General Election where most voting will take place on a cold dark winter’s night, the BBC is predicting Southport is likely to go Liberal Democrat.
On BBC News tonight (29th October) the BBC’s Deputy Political editor John Pienaar picked Southport out as one of several seats where tactical voting related to Brexit could see an upset returning a Lib Dem MP.
Southport has never returned a Labour MP ever but in 2017 the Lib Dems underperformed and narrowly came third for the first time in 40 years.
Since then, the Lib Dems have stormed back in local elections in the town and came top of the poll this May, gaining almost as many votes as Labour and Tory put together, while Labour slid back Thursday in third place.
Lib Dems have won six General Elections since 1987 to the Tories’ two. However, strangely, due to the national voting system in our country, on the rare occasions where Labour does well in the town, this has resulted in a Conservative government getting and extra MP – from Southport. But the BBC are suggesting that polrisation on the Brexit issue may bring the Lib Dems back again.