content.json

{
    "lookup_hed": "How to cast a tactical vote about Brexit",
    "constituency_label": "<strong>Where do you vote?</strong> (Don’t know? <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies\">Look here</a>.)",
    "stance_label": "<strong>Do you support Theresa May’s plans for Brexit?</strong>",
    "stance_leave": "Yes! Brexit means Brexit.",
    "stance_remain": "No! A “hard” Brexit is a bad Brexit.",
    "lab": "Labour",
    "ld": "Liberal Democrats",
    "snp": "Scottish National Party",
    "green": "Green Party",
    "con": "Conservative Party",
    "ukip": "UK Independence Party",
    "other": "Other",
    "none": "Non-competitive",
    "practical_hed": "What if people voted tactically in swing seats where the Brexit vote was close?",
    "practical_remain": "Those opposing May’s Brexit",
    "practical_leave": "Those supporting May’s Brexit",
    "practical_footnote": "Data: The <a href=\"http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/our-research/electoral-data\">UK Electoral Commission</a>, the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38762034\">BBC</a>, <a href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b71SDKPFbk-ktmUTXmDpUP5PT299qq24orEA0_TOpmw/edit?usp=sharing\">Chris Hanretty</a> (University of East Anglia), Quartz analysis",
    "ideal_hed": "What if people voted tactically everywhere?",
    "ideal_remain": "Those opposing May’s Brexit",
    "ideal_leave": "Those supporting May’s Brexit",
    "ideal_footnote": "Data: The <a href=\"http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/our-research/electoral-data\">UK Electoral Commission</a>, Quartz analysis",
    "section_1_hed": "What’s this all about?",
    "section_2_hed": "REMOVED",
    "section_3_hed": "REMOVED",
    "section_1": [
        "Britain is preparing for its second general election in two years, with the momentous referendum on EU membership held in between.",
        "Soon after the UK narrowly voted to leave the EU in June last year, Theresa May was nominated by her party to take over as prime minister from David Cameron, who campaigned against Brexit and quit when the vote went against him. According to the rules at the time, May could have continued to govern without a public vote until 2020. Instead, she unexpectedly called a “snap” election for June 8.",
        "By her reasoning, the vote is necessary to give her a mandate to steer Brexit negotiations with the EU, which are scheduled to run through 2019, not long before the regularly scheduled election date. “Getting Brexit right” is the thing “upon which everything else we care about will depend,” May said this week.",
        "Although <a href=\"https://britainelects.com/\">the polls have tightened</a> in recent weeks, May’s Conservatives remain on course to expand their majority in parliament—the party currently holds 330 seats in the 650-member chamber. The government that takes over after the vote can run things until 2022, years after Britain’s scheduled separation from the EU.",
        "The snap election gives political parties only weeks to organize, campaign, and try to sway voters with <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39955886\">pre-vote manifestos</a>. Campaigning also took a more sober turn following the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-40008389\">Manchester terror attack</a>, with security policies more prominent when the candidates resumed canvassing.",
        "The biggest issue, however, is <a href=\"http://whatukthinks.org/eu/has-labours-rise-anything-to-do-with-brexit/\">Brexit</a>. To simplify greatly, voters have two choices: give May’s Conservatives a bigger majority, ensuring Brexit happens on <a href=\"http://www.cer.org.uk/insights/prime-minister-unshackled\">her terms</a>; or vote for one of the left-leaning opposition parties (predominantly Labour and the Liberal Democrats, or the Scottish National Party in Scotland), which have different visions for Brexit but all oppose giving May a <a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-23/blair-warns-against-brexit-blank-check-for-may-in-u-k-vote\">free hand</a> to determine the course of Britain’s divorce from the EU.",
        "At the extremes, a <a href=\"https://twitter.com/peter_tl/status/862308841400283137/photo/1\">“hard” Brexit</a>, favored by the right, would practically sever all ties from the EU. A “soft” Brexit, meanwhile, would preserve some of the UK’s previous arrangements with the EU, on free trade, immigration, and the like.",
        "Complicating matters is that some Conservatives are pushing <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/20/damian-green-remain-voters-should-back-theresa-may\">a soft line on Brexit</a>, while some Labour candidates are taking <a href=\"http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hard-brexit-general-election-2017-no-deal-lib-dems-greens-article-50-a7756761.html\">a much tougher stance</a>. However, the Conservative candidates running for seats that the party thinks it can swing <a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-15/how-theresa-may-is-recruiting-an-army-of-hard-brexit-backers\">mostly come from the more hardline Brexit camp</a>, a statement of intent from May’s party.",
        "This is where tactical voting could make a difference. Quartz has identified 57 seats in close contention in which voters acting as a bloc according to their feelings about Brexit could swing the result one way or the other. All else equal, if May lost these seats to rival parties she would lose her majority. A recent narrowing in opinion polls suggests this is not as unlikely as it seemed only a few weeks ago."
    ],
    "section_2": [
        "These calculations combine data from the 2015 general election (including by-elections since then) and the 2016 Brexit referendum. First, we use official tallies of the <a href=\"http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/our-research/electoral-data\">2015 general election results</a> to understand the balance of power between the parties. Second, we use official tallies of the Brexit referendum <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38762034\">gathered by the BBC</a> from the small number of constituencies that publish them. Third, for those seats that didn’t publish official referendum tallies, we use estimates produced by <a href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b71SDKPFbk-ktmUTXmDpUP5PT299qq24orEA0_TOpmw/edit?usp=sharing\">Chris Hanretty</a> of the University of East Anglia. (We have excluded constituencies in Northern Ireland.)",
        "Seats are considered susceptible to tactical voting if the ranks of pro- or anti-Brexit voters are realistically big enough to overcome the margin of victory for the winning MP in the previous general election.",
        "More specifically, we identify a swing seat as any constituency where the previous margin of victory was less than 5% in the 2015 general election and the 2016 Brexit referendum saw voters split by no more than 5% on the issue. This is a plausible but arbitrary threshold, and it’s possible the actual votes will swing by more or less because of Brexit or other reasons.",
        "If <em>all</em> the races decided by 5% or less in the 2015 general election swung to the first- or second-place candidate this year, it would make a much larger difference to the outcome of the election, as illustrated in the maps below. Quartz has identified 178 seats that could theoretically swing this way in the 2017 election. These are extremely unlikely scenarios, to be sure, but help us understand the range of possible outcomes."
    ],
    "section_3": [
        "Voters make decisions based on a range of issues and personal preferences, and none of the numbers described here should be construed as a prediction of the election result. Forecasting is particularly fraught this year, given the unique nature of the vote, the first snap election in Britain since 1974, and the momentous decisions that the next government will make, refashioning the UK’s economic and geopolitical relationships for generations.",
        "<em>Updated June 5, 2017 to include data from by-elections that have taken place since the 2015 general election.</em>"
    ]
}