Option 1
If you don’t want the Tories to win ...
There are 48 seats in the country where the combined vote of Labour, Lib Dem, Greens and - if relevant - Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party outweighed Conservative votes in 2015. In all of these, the tactical option is to vote for the biggest of the opposition parties. Use the search box below to find out if your seat is among them, or see below for a full list.
Where a tactical vote might matter
The 48 seats where votes for the opposition (Labour, Lib Dem, SNP or Plaid Cymru) outnumbered those for the Conservatives. But a note of caution: in some places the Ukip vote, if it all went to the Tories, is big enough to keep the Tories in place
If your seat is already held by one of these parties, the safest tactical option is to vote for the incumbent.
Lastly, some seats look unlosable for the Tories: the combined vote of all the progressive parties would not have been enough in 2015 to win the seat. In these cases, the tactical option is still to vote for the biggest opposition party, but you may find it a little academic.
Option 2
If you want the Tories to win ...
Don’t beat about the bush. Vote Tory. There is now no single seat in which Ukip look better placed to win. And since Theresa May still seems likely to come back with an absolute majority, you shouldn’t fret unduly about who her coalition partners will be.
Option 3
If you don’t want the Tories to win, but only because you don’t trust them to deliver a sufficiently hard Brexit ...
We can’t help you. Sorry.
Note: This guide is based purely on 2015 election results, for two closely related reasons: 1. This means that we use the same information for every constituency. 2. It means that the information is directly comparable; for instance, even byelection and general election results in a given constituency can be quite different because turnout tends to be much lower at a byelection. (We have, though, noted the rare cases where a constituency has changed hands in a byelection since 2015.) On this basis, our advice in option 1 is always to vote for the opposition party, among Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP or Plaid Cymru, which polled highest in 2015.
We have not taken account of polling, because of well-publicised concerns about its value as a prediction, particularly at the constituency level. You can find out more about your constituency and get contact details for the candidates here.
