Most of the south's largest counties gained a seat in the last boundary review, but although they continue to grow, several of those same counties lose that newly acquired seat this time round.
Essex is one of those counties. It's also more significant for Labour because, to put it mildly, the last boundary review didn't do the party many favours. And that in a county that was among the first to fall out of love with the Labour government and where the party struggles to hold seats even in favourable times.
The Guardian model undertaken by Lewis Baston chose to pair Essex with Suffolk but there is no actual need for this pairing to be undertaken: Essex is entitled to 16.7 seats (17) giving it a mean electorate of 75,326 - well within the range set by the Boundary Commission. Unless a pairing is unavoidable, it's likely the commission will avoid doing so, and that is the assumption used in the example above.
As with Kent, because Labour holds no seats in Essex, and the one Lib Dem seat - Colchester - is almost certainly going to be left unchanged, it's the Conservatives who start off a seat down. That seat will most likely be the one that was created last time round: Witham, so Priti Patel will be hoping a neighbouring MP retires (and Sir Alan Haselhurst must surely start as the favourite), or to contest a selection against a colleague from one of the other seats that takes in parts of her old seat.
Chelmsford is another seat the Conservatives are going to have to watch carefully, given the huge swing to the Lib Dems there last year. Chelmsford is a growing town and if the commission chooses to simply lop off an outlying (Conservative) ward that will make the seat highly marginal. However, the Commission has previous in Essex for splitting towns in half and coupling them with lots of surrounding less urban wards - Colchester was divided like this for many a year. if that happens to Chelmsford, both seats ought to be comfortably Conservative.
There is a real possibility that a constituency very similar to the old Harwich seat could make a comeback at this review; that might represent one of Labour's better electoral prospects on paper, but the distinctly independent and somewhat maverick profile Douglas Carswell has established, would make him a difficult incumbent to oust.
Braintree could be redrawn to take in essentially just the three Labour-ish towns of Braintree, Witham and Bocking but the same political realities that apply to Harwich are likely to apply here too: Braintree was one of Labour's least expected gains in 1997 and the party barely managed to retain it in 2001 before losing it comprehensively in 2005. By 2010 Labour was down to one in five of the votes cast and barely managed to retain second spot.
And then we have Harlow, the seat won and held by Bill Rammell from 1997 to 2010. Harlow is one of those roll-of-the-dice constituencies. If the Commission choose to add additional rural wards from Epping Forest it's going to be very difficult for Labour to take it back. However, the alternative option of taking out existing rural Epping Forest wards and instead extending Harlow south to take in Waltham Abbey, would make the seat very much more competitive.
Epping Forest itself needs to expand, one way or the other, and the most realistic option here would be an expansion into the Ongar part of the seat it currently donates to Brentwood. We're now moving into south Essex and some inevitabilities kick in. Thurrock, for example, is both a perfect size for a seat on the new numbers, and right up against uncrossable boundaries (Greater London and the Thames) on three of its four sides. So it's highly unlikely to see change.
That has consequences for the Brentwood seat, because it severely limits its options for expansion. The most logical option is to pair it with nearby Billericay which in turn enables the re-creation of a unified Basildon seat, minus Pitsea, which moves into Castle Point. Further east along the Thames estuary only minor changes are required to bring the electorates of Southend, Rochford, Rayleigh and Maldon within the Boundary Commission's target sizes.
In summary, the final outcome of the boundary review in Essex is likely to see the Conservatives lose more than just the single seat that seems inevitable before the process has even begun.
This is possible, but it's a large enough county that a lot of your assumptions could be questioned.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, Braintree would be almost ideal for us (except that instead of Halstead it might actually be better to take territory along the A120, where it's a little less right-wing than you might think). But it's clearly based off the 1997-2005 lines. If they base it off the 2010 lines, you won't get Witham in the seat and Saffron Walden will go into Chelmsford district instead.
It's also unlikely they'd link Maldon with the area north of Mark's Tey in preference to Witham. If we want this map (and we do) we need to justify why the Braintree seat isn't going east and why the Maldon seat has a northern addition with poor links to the rest of the constituency. Not that it necessarily matters, as our vote wasn't hugely up in 2011 and we actually lost a seat on Braintree council net.
Secondly, I'm not convinced a pairing of Harlow with Waltham Abbey is better for us than a pairing with Epping town. We have no organisation in the former, whereas we lose respectably in the latter. Either way, Harlow gets a lot harder than on the current lines.
Thirdly, your plan screws Pickles, as he either has to fight John Baron in a fair fight or pick up a new seat full of Chelmsford satellite villages he's never represented. While this should be part of any Labour proposal, it's going to face serious opposition and is more than the minimum necessary change.
Your Basildon is good (both for us and on community of interest grounds), but if the Boundary Commission were made enough to split the town right down the middle last time, they may be mad enough again.
And I'd quibble with the idea that Carswell is popular because of his independence. He's fairly secure because the parts of his seat outside Clacton are as hard-right as you'll find anywhere in the country, and the parts in Clacton where Labour ought to do well don't vote. Put Harwich back into the seat and push turnout in the wards in the east of Clacton up ten points and he might be more vulnerable than you'd think.
Overall, a good map for us in partisan terms, although we'd still need a very good year to win more than three seats. But precisely because of that, I don't think this is a likely map. This is our best-case scenario.
Edward, You're probably right about Braintree/Maldon.
ReplyDeleteIn respect of Harlow, the problem with your suggestion is that Epping is right in the centre of Epping Forest district - it's probably possible numerically to draw a seat that includes it but it will create a very strangely shaped constituency.
In respect of South Essex there may be one or perhaps two other ways to draw it but remember that Rochford, Rayleigh, Southend West and Castle Point are broadly the right size but still need to encroach a bit into what might be called Mid Essex (including the current South Basildon seat).
But beyond that the county still needs to absorb the loss of one entire seat and the consequences of that mean that it's impossible to leave Brentwood or Billericay/Basildon unchanged. So recreating something close to the Basildon seat is, in my view, more likely than unlikely.
Oh, how I wish that a proper Southend Central seat could be conjured up.
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