Published in Nailsea People.

If a general election was held tomorrow North Somerset’s long-sitting MP Liam Fox would be in danger of losing his seat, according to what is described as “the most authoritative opinion poll in five years”.

The YouGov survey of more than 14,000 people shows that Labour is now running virtually neck-and-neck with the Tories in the constituency. This indicates that Dr Fox could be defeated if only a handful of Liberal Democrat, Green or undecided voters decide to back Labour.

YouGov forecasts that Dr Fox would gain just 33% of the vote, with Labour on 32%. The Liberal Democrats would come a distant third place, on 16%. This, along with the fact that Labour has come second in the seat in the last three general elections, demonstrates that campaigns by local Liberal Democrats to present themselves as the challengers to Liam Fox in North Somerset are misguided.

Funded by a group of Conservative Party donors and published in the Daily Telegraph, the poll uses the multilevel regression and post-stratification method which accurately predicted the 2017 and 2019 General Election results to make credible constituency-level forecasts. Nationally, it predicts that the Tories will retain just 169 seats at the next general election, while Labour will sweep to power with a landslide 120-seat majority.

“Recent by-elections prove that Labour is now more than capable of overturning huge Tory majorities in seats like North Somerset,”North Somerset Labour Party Treasurer Michael Harriott said. “Labour came second to the Conservatives in this seat in the last three general elections, and it’s clear that we can now win it with the support of those who want to see a better Britain and a better North Somerset.”

“It is vital, therefore, that Lib Dem, Green and undecided voters lend their support to the Labour Party candidate if they want to see the change that this constituency, and the rest of the country, is crying out for,” he added.

“The poll shows that, with Labour and the Conservatives so close, any vote for the Lib Dems or Greens in North Somerset runs the risk of allowing Liam Fox to cling on to his seat against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of local residents,” Mr Harriottpointed out.

Yue He Parkinson recently left the local Liberal Democrat Party due to disappointment with their economic policies and joined North Somerset Labour Party, attracted by the policies of Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves. She said: “many voters have told me when I have been canvassing that ‘as long as you can kick out Liam Fox, you will have my vote’. The confusion for many North Somerset voters has been which party to tactically vote for toachieve this.”

Ms Parkinson stood in the May 2023 Local Election in Portishead South as the Liberal Democrat candidate, a contest the Conservativecandidate eventually won. She believes the reason for this “whenthe mood across the country caused Tories in many other councils to lose their seats” was that “anti-Tory tactical voting clashed between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party which ended up helping the Tories.” Ms Parkinson says, “in the coming general election, the message is clear: only the Labour Party is capable ofbeating Liam Fox.”