Election snapshot: how Brexit implications for science may influence voters in Oxford

With the UK general election going to the polls today, a seat where the ruling Conservative Party has a large majority is under siege because of concerns about what Brexit will mean for science.

According to pollster YouGov, Oxford West and Abingdon is on a knife-edge before the UK votes on Thursday. The sitting MP, Nicola Blackwood, who has what should be a comfortable majority of 9,582, is in a big fight to retain the seat, with her main rival, Liberal Democrat candidate and physics teacher, Layla Moran framing Blackwood as someone backing a Brexit plan that will hurt science.

“Nicola knows full well what damage Brexit can do,” Moran told to Science|Business. “She is standing behind a hard Brexit mandate that is patently not good for scientists.”

As chair of the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee between 2015 and 2016, Blackwood was a convincing advocate for science, researchers say.

But Blackwood’s backing of a hard Brexit – she was previously for staying in the EU but now backs the Conservatives’ plan to leave the EU's single market and customs union, which threatens to cut UK scientists’ access to EU research programmes – is seeing some scientists desert her.

“Nicola was generally regarded as good for science and campaigned for Remain,” said Mike Galsworthy, founder of the pressure group Scientists for EU. “But since then she has utterly folded to the [hard Brexit] line and put politics before constituency.”

Prime minister Theresa May, who is charting the UK’s course towards a clean break with the EU, a so-called hard Brexit stance, called this year’s election when the Conservative Party was 20 points ahead in the polls, arguing she needed an increased majority to strengthen her hand during the coming negotiations on leaving the EU.

Blackwood’s support for the hard Brexit stance is prompting a strong reaction. A blog calling itself ‘Brexit health warning’ has sponsored leaflets in the Oxford area with a message for voters: “Nicola Blackwood: Not good enough”. The leaflet asks what Blackwood has done for science and innovation – the answer: “Voted to trigger article 50”.

While Blackwood had a comfortable majority in the 2015 election, she won the seat with a much narrower margin – of 176 votes – in 2010, when she displaced Liberal Democrat Evan Harris, a medical doctor who was his party’s spokesman on science.

The evidence from the polls is that voters in the constituency are once more leaning towards the Liberal Democrats. The Green Party, which won 2,497 votes in 2015 is not fielding a candidate to clear the way for Moran.

A Facebook page, Scientists for Layla Moran, rallies researchers to canvas for the candidate. “We’re the only ones offering a referendum on the deal we eventually get in Brussels. We should have the option of staying in the EU if we don’t like the (divorce) terms,” said Moran. 

Standing against Blackwood and Moran, the Labour Party is putting forward city councillor and Oxford University fellow Marie Tidball.

The Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn has been ambivalent about Brexit, showing only tepid support for Remain in the June referendum and standing firm against holding a second referendum, leaving some researchers in the area frustrated.

The party is however in favour of a soft Brexit, with a manifesto promise to keep access to the EU single market "on the table" and to unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU27 residents in the UK before exit negotiations start.

Past voting patterns suggest the main contest is between Blackwood and Moran, and Moran is hoping for tactical votes from Labour supporters. (Both Blackwood and Tidball were contacted on several occasions to comment but did not respond).

“The Lib Dems have by far the best chance of beating the Tories in this area,” says Becky Snowden, data analyst with Tactical 2017, a website that guides voters who want to unseat Conservative MPs. “Historically they have always come second place to the Conservatives [here].”