The Tories’ great fear in this campaign is that they can get their vote out, squeeze the Brexit party right down and still lose. Why? Because their strategy relies on the Liberal Democrats taking a chunk out of Labour’s Remain vote. If Labour manages to rally the Remain vote in the way that it did in 2017, then we are heading into hung parliament territory and a situation where the Tories cannot govern because they have no potential partners.
The complication for the Tories is that they also need to win back a chunk of their Remain voters who have gone over to the Liberal Democrats and hold off a challenge from Jo Swinson’s party in a host of constituencies. There are 20-odd seats that the Tories hold which the Liberal Democrats would take with a swing of 15 per cent or less.
Some Tories think that Swinson should take part in the big TV debate with Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn because it would aid her effort to peel off Labour Remainers.
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