Bexleyheath & Crayford
2015 Result:
Conservative: 20643 (47.3%)
Labour: 11451 (26.2%)
Lib Dem: 1308 (3%)
Green: 950 (2.2%)
UKIP: 9182 (21%)
Others: 151 (0.3%)
MAJORITY: 9192 (21%)
Category: Safe Conservative seat
Geography: Greater London. Part of the Bexley council area.
Main population centres: Bexleyheath, Barnehurst, Crayford, Welling.
Profile: This is the middle of the three constituencies in the London Borough of Bexley, both geographically and politically - to the south are the leafy suburbs of the safe Conservative berth of Old Bexley and Sidcup, the north the grim planned estates of Labour held Erith and Thamesmead. Bexleyheath and Crayford lies somewhere inbetween: mostly a middle-class commuter area in the south, but becoming more industrial and Labour inclined as you head north-east. The seat covers suburban Bexleyheath (Bexley proper, as opposed to the smaller, quainter Bexley Village in Old Bexley and Sidup), Barnehurst, Crayford (which merges with Dartford on the other side of the London/Kent boundary, and is probably most distinctive these days for it`s dog track) and Slade Green. Most of the seat, especially to the south around Danson park, is affluent, suburban commuterland, but towards the Thames and the Crayford marshes the seat becomes more industrial, with distribution warehouses, industrial parks and the rail maintenance depot at Slade Green.
Politics: A marginal seat, won by Labour in 1997 and finally won back by David Evennett in 2005, one of the few Conservative MPs ousted in the 1997 landslide to win back the seat they lost.

Con: | 21794 (50%) |
Lab: | 11450 (27%) |
LDem: | 5502 (13%) |
BNP: | 2042 (5%) |
Oth: | 2394 (6%) |
MAJ: | 10344 (24%) |
Con: | 19722 (46%) |
Lab: | 15171 (36%) |
LDem: | 5144 (12%) |
UKIP: | 1302 (3%) |
Oth: | 1241 (3%) |
MAJ: | 4551 (11%) |
Con: | 16121 (40%) |
Lab: | 17593 (44%) |
LDem: | 4476 (11%) |
BNP: | 1408 (3%) |
Oth: | 780 (2%) |
MAJ: | 1472 (4%) |
Con: | 18527 (38%) |
Lab: | 21942 (46%) |
LDem: | 5391 (11%) |
Oth: | 812 (2%) |
MAJ: | 3415 (7%) |
*There were boundary changes after 2005











At the Bexley local elections held on the same day as the 2010 general election, the BNP and English Democrats took 15% of the vote between them. UKIP polled just 2%:
http://www.andrewteale.me.uk/leap/results/2010/21/
Very little has been said on this seat so thought I would start the ball rolling.
2010 Result:
Conservative: 21,794 (50.5%)
Labour: 11,450 (26.5%)
Lib Dem: 5,502 (12.7%)
BNP: 2,042 (4.7%)
UKIP: 1,557 (3.6%)
English Dem: 466 (1.1%)
Green: 371 (0.9%)
CON HOLD MAJORITY: 10,344 (24%)
2015 Prediction presuming same parties stand:
Conservative: 17,614 (41.6%)
UKIP: 11,477 (27.1%)
Labour: 9,862 (23.3%)
Lib Dem: 1,265 (3%)
BNP: 1,086 (2.6%)
Green: 704 (1.6%)
English Dem: 363 (0.8%)
CON HOLD MAJORITY: 6,137 (14.5%)
The Lib Dem candidate is Richard Davis.
CON hold 6,500 (Lab 2nd)
more like 7,500 l reckon.
I was going to say 7000 so I’ll split the difference!
Great minds think alike.
Something like this maybe
CON: 45
LAB: 29
UKIP: 19
LD: 3
GRN: 3
ED: 1
Yes, That looks bang on. Not the most interesting of results here.
Conservative Hold. 9,000 maj
Labour added one vote in 2015 to their 2010 total: 11,451 votes vs 11,450.
Shaun’s prediction was good: the majority was 9,192.
“Labour added one vote in 2015 to their 2010 total: 11,451 votes vs 11,450”
I wonder who that one voter is and what persuaded them.to vote Labour (of course, I highly doubt the exact same pepple voted for Labour on 2010 and 2015 here) Haha!
Labour probably lost a few thousand to UKIP and picked up the same from the LDs.
Passed through this seat over the weekend! Several LEAVE posters! Didn’t see a single REMAIN poster!
The answer is that whether they will vote Leave or not will of course depend on the overall result. Hanretty’s estimates, which are of course not a perfect guide, suggest Bromley is narrowly Leave and Bexley fairly comfortably Leave (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tRE59IkgeRREISpM75I8gR0MdkGe1diParW0hVO109Y/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=881507152).
Agree with that analysis. Bromley could be considered something of a barometer, albeit one that might go leave in a close remain win. Bexley on the other hand will need a national landslide to go remain, perhaps 56-44. It will be second only to Havering as best leave’s best area in London.
I think 60-40 Remain in London may not be enough for Remain overall.
@AndyJS
I agree. Certainly need to be looking to get up to 70%+ in the inner London borough.
It *may* not but it may scrape it. Remain certainly need high 60s in inner London but remember there’s a few suburbs that pull it down significantly.
Re Bromley
It’s actually a hard call as someone who knows the borough very well, because there will be very diverse voting patterns across the different areas, and whether Remain or Leave win the borough will therefore be strongly dependent on turnout.
I expect Penge and most of Beckenham to be quite strong for Remain. West Wickham, Bromley Town and Chislehurst will lean more marginally to remain on a good day and be more like 50/50 if the national result is close. I expect Orpington, Biggin Hill and the Cray Valley to be strongly for Leave. On an even turnout I’d therefore say Remain have the slight edge but if Orpington has the higher turnout then the borough will narrowly vote Leave.
Bexley is a much less diverse borough and will vote Leave comfortably.
Wandsworth for example would need to be approaching 70% Remain for Remain to be confident of victory across the country, but many of the commentators on TV and blog sites may see a result from Wandsworth that is something like 65% Remain and conclude that Remain are going to win easily. That wouldn’t necessarily be the case.
Well according to “Joe”, even 65% of Tory members in Putney are supporting remain. If that’s true (I personally doubt it), then the remain vote there in the total electorate will be well north of 70%. We will I think see the curious phenomenon of Tory areas in inner London like Wandsworth, Westminster, Kensington and Fulham getting a better Remain result than Newham and Barking.
As a remain supporter I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with 65% in Wandsworth, but I think that would lean to a narrow victory. The demographics are very good for remain but it has a lot of Tories and only 39% voted for AV, compared to the Lab dominated inner London boroughs that yes carried.
A little remarked aspect of the generally overshadowed Tooting by-election was the utterly abysmal UKIP result – 507 votes, 1.6%. Not especially surprising but does rather confirm that we can expect Wandsworth to come out strongly in favour of Remain.
Yes, and I think they lost deposits in all three Wandsworth seats at the GE. In the by-election though the LDs and Greens fell in about the same proportion, so clearly a squeeze effect there.
Hemmelig – Im DC of Putney Conservatives, we had a debate event whete hands were shown … Im fairly certain :p
That is an amazing statistic if so. Even in London the Tory membership contains large numbers of elderly blue rinse and Bufton Tuftons, admittedly more so in the outer boroughs than in Putney.
I bet there weren’t many people under 60 supporting Brexit in the Putney Conservative Association.
There aren’t many people under 60 in any Conservative association usually. If that isn’t the case in Putney then it’s a major exception to the rule.
HH – I thought it was those aged 35-55 the Tories had a problem with re membership.
All of the Tories present at Counts seem to be aged 18-30 or 65+ over the years.
Incidentally, re the postal vote discussion the other day, Putney Conservative Association won some award for having the most postal votes/pledges of any in the UK when the Tories gained it a decade ago. So that might explain why the postals in London are more Tory than up here – if it was a Party initiative in London (as it was with NW Labour HQ).
For as long as I can remember people have been saying the Tories have a problem with the average age of their members being over 60. But in fact what seems to happen is that people keep joining once they get to that sort of age and so the party membership doesn’t die out as predicted.
Yes, I assumed they have a lot of teenage members and lots of pensioners with a gap in the middle when people lapse to have families and move house etc.
Here in Sheffield the gap is massively exaggerated. To quote a Sheffield Tory I interviewed for my dissertation: “The problem is most Conservative voters are about 80 odd or something, so you can’t get them to knock on a door because they’ve just not got the stamina to do it.”
He’s just finished his degree, which I think rather illustrates it. From what I hear, the Tories only have three people in the whole city on the A list, which means Spencer Pitfield and Ian Walker have to go round losing their deposit everywhere.
That looks good to me from a Leave perspective.
Labour has reselected Stefano Borella for GE 2017.
Nigel Beard, Labour MP for this constituency from 1997 to 2005, has sadly died aged 80.