The Plan

These are the seats where Labour has the greatest lead over the Conservatives from 2019 notional results (between a 23 and 78 percentage point lead). There is no chance of any of these being won by the Conservatives at the next election.

If 19% of voters would give the Greens their first preference in a proportional election, and 60% of Green supporters are preparing to vote tactically for other parties (as seen here), then our voting advice has to be to vote Green in these constituencies so that their representation, or at least their vote share, can begin to get closer to reflecting their true support. The Green Party are only targeting 4 constituencies in this election despite the fact their proportional representation for a 19% vote share should be 124 seats. Given 20% of voters would consider both the Greens and Labour for their vote, asking all of this cohort of the electorate to vote Green in these seats would be an important step towards giving the Green Party fair representation. We should not expect many Green victories, but if they are to make gains, these seats are the safest and most likely places for this to happen.

There are a handful of seats in Labour’s safest hundred where the Liberal Democrats have done well recently and/or historically, and it makes sense to suggest a Liberal Democrat vote in these few places. It is safe to split the progressive vote between two progressive parties in all these seats. We don’t believe a three-way split is a good idea though, so we will only be endorsing one of the smaller progressive parties in each place.

Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney had a particularly high Brexit Party vote in 2019, so the right wing vote is obviously much larger in this constituency than in the other seats in this grouping. We will therefore advocate a Labour vote in this one seat in this range.

We will be advocating a Liberal Democrat vote in 75 of the 80 seats where they have the highest notional vote share from 2019. The exceptions to this advice are due to the Labour party being better placed to win the seats from the Conservatives and the seats being within the range of seats where Labour gains are particularly desirable (their 231st to 280th likely wins in England and Wales).We will be asking the Green Party to stand aside and endorse the Liberal Democrats in 50 of these seats. There is strong polling evidence that stand-asides with endorsements work, and it is obvious that the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to proportional representation is something which would be enormously beneficial to the future electoral prospects of the Green Party. Success for the Liberal Democrats in this election is success for the Green Party. Standing Green Party candidates in Liberal Democrat targets is not good politics.

We will advocate a Labour vote in what we regard to be Labour’s 101st to 280th most likely wins in England and Wales (except where the Liberal Democrats should be targeting Sheffield Hallam and Wimbledon). We want these seats to remain or become Labour seats.

In order to ensure Labour wins their 231st to 280th most likely wins in England and Wales from the Conservatives, we are advocating stand-asides by the Liberal Democrats and Greens. We cannot risk the Conservatives being the largest party in parliament again. These suggested stand-asides should ensure that result would not happen. If, as we suggest, parties are going to be deliberately splitting the vote after Labour’s 300th likely win in order to deprive them of a majority, then they need to make sure those actions don’t help the Conservatives cling to some hope of remaining in power. The suggested stand-asides would make such a hope a fantasy, and would make any deliberate vote-splitting actions far more palatable to the electorate as a result.

Update:
Given the sudden and unexpected announcement of this election, the likelihood of us persuading Liberal Democrats and Greens to participate in vote-splitting and stand-asides in this election is low. We therefore have to hope voters like you will embrace and promote our tactical voting advice in good time.

The basic advice beyond Labour’s 300th target is “Don’t vote Labour”. 300 seats would represent 46% of the seats in parliament, a much higher share of seats than Labour are likely to achieve as a share of the vote. Where the Greens or Lib Dems are targeting one of these seats, we would obviously advocate voting for that party, but everywhere where they can’t feasibly win in this seat range, vote for one of the Greens or Lib Dems anyway.

If the Greens or Liberal Democrats are to lose votes to tactical voting in Labour's mid-range targets, then it is important that these losses can be regained elsewhere such that there is a net gain in income from short money allocations. It is to be hoped that Lib Dem and Green votes gained in Labour’s hundred “safest” seats, Liberal Democrat and Green targets, and all seats beyond Labour’s 300th target, will enormously outweigh any votes lost in Labour’s 231st to 280th targets and seats targeted by the other minor progressive party.

In order to help voters remember not to give Labour an illegitimate majority on a minority share of the vote, the Sprint for PR was hoping to stand candidates primarily in Labour’s 281st to 330th targets, and then their 331st to 380th targets if volunteer numbers and funds allowed this. Sprint for PR does still intend to register a single-issue political party in order to stand candidates in a highly strategic manner in all future First-Past-The-Post elections.

We advocate Liberal Democrats standing aside in the 4 targets the Greens themselves have identified. We have added a further 4 seats where we would suggest the Liberal Democrats stand aside candidates in favour of the Green candidate. The notional vote share for the Greens was over 10% in each of these seats in 2019, so we don’t quite understand why they are not targeting them in this election.