The Sea wall is a term used by psephologists to refer to battleground constituencies along the UK coastline. [1] The sea wall is predominantly Conservative voting but is home to many marginal seats that are vulnerable to Labour according to opinion polls. [2] [3] Along with Red wall and Blue wall, the Sea wall overlaps both [4] and has been used in coverage for the 2024 general election. There are thought to be 108 such constituencies. [5] In the 2019 general election, Labour won just 24 of these seats. [6]
Coastal constituencies in England and Wales are noted for deprivation. [7] [8] They are personified by tourism-based economies, the cost of living crisis, and poor connectivity. [9] Coastal communities are known to have lower wages compared to people living and working inland. [10] The availability of affordable housing has also been an issue. [11]
Before the 2024 general election, the think tank Onward has called coastal areas “the forgotten battleground that could decide [this] election”. [12]
The term was used 2022 local elections when the Labour Party took majority control of Worthing Borough Council just five years after winning their first councillor in the district. [13] Labour are considered to be competitive in Conservative areas within the South like Plymouth, Bournemouth, Southampton, and Portsmouth. [14]
Research from the Fabian Society was reported on that Labour had unprecedented polling leads over the Conservatives. [15] The "sea wall" is regarded by them as an important area for the 2024 general election. [16] YouGov polling showed that 44% of voters in the Sea wall said they would never consider voting Conservative. [17]
Jaywick in Tendring District in Essex is the most deprived neighbourhood in England. [18] The Clacton constituency was noted for being the only place to elect a UKIP MP in a general election. [19] Since Brexit, Conservative support in coastal areas that voted Leave has been waning. [20] On 3 June 2024, Nigel Farage took over Reform UK and announced his candidacy in Clacton. [21]
Labour won the 2024 Blackpool South by-election with a large swing. [22] Channel 4 has reported during the 2024 United Kingdom general election that the coastal towns in the sea wall will determine the election. [23]
Clacton-on-Sea, often simply called Clacton, is a seaside town and resort in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District, with a population of 53,200 (2021). The town is situated around 77 miles north-east of London, 40 miles east-north-east of Chelmsford, 58 miles north-east of Southend-on-Sea, 16 miles south-east of Colchester and 16 miles south of Harwich.
Nuneaton is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010. Since 1997, the seat has been seen as an important national bellwether. In the 2024 General Election the seat was taken by the Labour Party candidate Jodie Gosling.
Southend East and Rochford is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Bayo Alaba, a member of the Labour Party.
Southend West and Leigh is a constituency in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. In the 2024 general election the seat was won by David Burton-Sampson for Labour. It was previously held by Anna Firth who won the 2022 by-election, following the murder of the incumbent MP, David Amess.
Suffolk Coastal is a parliamentary constituency in the county of Suffolk, England, which has been represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP).
Jaywick is a coastal village in the Tendring district of Essex, England, 2 miles (3 km) west of Clacton-on-Sea. It lies on the North Sea coast of England, 60 miles (97 km) from London and 17 miles (27 km) from Colchester. It was constructed in the 1930s as a holiday resort for Londoners but has, over time, been officially named the most deprived area in the country.
Clacton is a constituency in Essex represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Nigel Farage of Reform UK. It is centred on the seaside town of Clacton, hence its name.
Smethwick is a parliamentary constituency, centred on the town of Smethwick in Staffordshire. It returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system. The constituency was created for the 1918 general election, abolished for the February 1974 general election, and re-established for the 2024 general election. It is formed from the abolished Warley constituency, with the addition of most of the Blackheath ward.
On 9 October 2014, a by-election was held for the UK parliamentary constituency of Clacton in Essex, England. The by-election was triggered by the Conservative MP for Clacton, Douglas Carswell, defecting to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and subsequently resigning his seat to seek re-election as its candidate.
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 7 May 2015 to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. It was the first of three general elections to be held under the rules of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and was the last general election to be held before the United Kingdom voted to end its membership of the European Union (EU) in June 2016. Local elections took place in most areas of England on the same day and is to date the most recent general election to coincide with local elections. The governing Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, won an unexpected victory; opinion polls and political commentators had predicted that the results of the election would cause a second consecutive hung parliament whose composition would be similar to the previous Parliament, which was in effect from the previous national election in 2010. However, opinion polls underestimated the Conservatives, as they won 330 of the 650 seats and 36.9 per cent of the votes, giving them a majority of ten seats.
Opinion polling for the 2024 United Kingdom general election was carried out by various organisations to gauge voting intention. Most of the polling companies listed are members of the British Polling Council (BPC) and abide by its disclosure rules. The dates for these opinion polls range from the previous election on 12 December 2019 to the eve of the 2024 election. The date of the election was Thursday, 4 July 2024.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election of 12 December 2019 saw many new pieces of politics-related jargon enter popular use.
The red wall is a term used in British politics to describe the UK Parliament constituencies in the Midlands and Northern England that historically supported the Labour Party. At the 2019 general election, many of these parliamentary seats were won by the Conservative Party, with the media describing the red wall as having "turned blue".
The 2023 United Kingdom local elections were held on Thursday, 4 May 2023 in England and on Thursday 18 May 2023 in Northern Ireland. These included district councils, unitary authorities, and directly elected mayors in England, and included all local councils in Northern Ireland. Notably, these elections were the first to be held under the Elections Act 2022, a new voter identification law that required voters to show photo ID when attending a polling station, and was a cause for controversy.
The 2024 United Kingdom local elections took place on 2 May 2024 to choose 2,658 councillors on 107 councils in England, 11 directly elected mayors in England, the 25 members of the London Assembly, and 37 police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. The 2024 Blackpool South parliamentary by-election was held on the same day. These local elections were the last set of routine elections before the general election.
A by-election took place on 2 May 2024 in the UK Parliament constituency of Blackpool South, the same day as local elections in England and Wales.
An election took place in the Essex constituency of Clacton on 4 July 2024, as part of the 2024 United Kingdom general election. Nigel Farage, the newly re-appointed leader of Reform UK and the former leader of the UK Independence Party, won the election with 46.2% of the vote and successfully entered Parliament after 7 previous attempts. As "figurehead of the country's populist right", Farage brought Clacton to international attention.