UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[JimJamUK]

Biggest question would be whether anyone other than the Tories keeps their deposit.

UKIP did above average in Southend West previously and their post-collapse performance in the English 2019 local elections shows that they retain a good protest vote identity for many of their former voters. Therefore, it’s not hard to see them picking up some protest votes here given the only other party people will have heard of is the Conservatives who are not exactly popular atm.

[JimJamUK]

What even constitutes as the fringe left nowadays?

The Worker’s Party (George Galloway’s reactionary communists) , Breakthrough Party (young Corbynistas), and Northern Independence Party (extremely online southern based students) are the only 3 that immediately come to mind. The more traditional far left as represented by Socialist Party etc seems to have melted away and only contests random council wards if they even still functionally exist.

[JimJamUK]

Has any party other than Labour been actively campaigning or are they fielding paper candidates?

Labour and the Conservatives have competitive council seats up in May so will be campaigning a lot. The Greens are supposedly targeting a ward within the constituency so will presumably focus their entire effort in that one area. The Lib Dems have council seats elsewhere to focus on, while the various minor parties and independents will have minimal campaigning infrastructure even if they want to properly campaign.

[JimJamUK]

Shouldn't the lib Dems be priming up their by election machine again, hoping to prove they can win against both labour and the tories

The Lib Dem by-election machine is not used in every possible circumstance. Erdington has no Lib Dem history and is very clearly a Labour-Conservative marginal (likely to be won by the former, where most potential new Lib Dem votes come from). This means it would be very difficult to seriously position themselves as a party that can win in the eyes of the voters, and both major parties will be putting in a lot of effort to win (which isn't always the case, even North Shropshire had a skeletal Labour campaign apart from a few high profile visits at the last minute). The Lib Dem's chose not to properly campaign in Batley + Spen, Hartlepool or Old Bexley + Sidcup because they obviously weren't going to win and could focus their resources elsewhere. There's no point making a half-effort when national polling has you moderately down on 2019. There's council seats up elsewhere in the city where local activists will be more concerned, and getting people to come campaign from all over the country on the basis of saving your deposit isn't a very exciting proposition.

[JimJamUK]

Lots of spin from all directions, as per usual.

[JimJamUK]

Reform really should have stuck with the ‘Brexit Party’ name. Yes, it makes them sound a bit stuck in the past but at least people would know who they are and what they stand for. They lack any notable or particularly impressive figures to attract attention (Tice is an absolute nobody to the average member of the British public) and their policies are not going to attract widespread support to a minor party. Anti-restrictions could have had a decent amount of purchase, but an overtly right wing party formerly led by Nigel Farage was not going to attract the actual anti-restrictions minority (young people who perceive little risk from coronavirus and who have their lives most damaged by restrictions). There’s little support for anti-green measures as the public are concerned about climate change and the Tories (and de facto Labour) don’t support the more toxic elements of the environmentalist movement eg; Extinction Rebellion, raising fuel duty etc. Anti-tax is not going to get you anywhere when there’s a Conservative government. There’s potentially an opening with illegal immigration, but immigration is less salient than it used to be and the mainstream media aren’t giving it the attention they used to. Basically, the conservative-libertarian segment of the population that Reform is from is pretty much non-existent, and the slightly upmarket BNP segment that UKIP attracted in the early 2010s is significantly happier after Brexit so less inclined to protest vote (if they vote at all these days) and Reform seems to be ignoring them anyways. There’s just no reason to expect them to be the next UKIP.

[JimJamUK]

It would have been terrible for Labour if he had as the leadership speculation would have ensued immediately.

Not being an MP hasn’t stopped baseless leadership speculation before.

[JimJamUK]

The voteuk Wakefield thread is a real trip

It's quite funny when you realise quite how close to each other two of the main participants live. It's like neighbours ringing each other up to scream abuse down the phone...

Lets hope they don't encounter each other at the count tomorrow...

[JimJamUK]

The voteuk Wakefield thread is a real trip

It's quite funny when you realise quite how close to each other two of the main participants live. It's like neighbours ringing each other up to scream abuse down the phone...

Lets hope they don't encounter each other at the count tomorrow...

Update - One of the Lib Dem activists has posted that a newly elected Labour councillor got a restraining order against a fellow poster and Conservative councillor.

I am calling for a complete and total shutdown of Wakefield until we figure out what the hell is going on!

[JimJamUK]

The map shown there is of Wakefield district which is much larger than the constituency - and more Labour as well. The constituency is at its western end. Anyway, a comparison map between the 2021 and 2022 results would be more dramatic!

Yeah, it was IIRC a 5% Conservative lead last year so a 22% shift since then! The caveats are that 2021 saw a freak Conservative victory in Wakefield East while 2022 saw the Conservative incumbent splitting the vote as an independent in Wrenthorpe and Outwood West. Still, Wakefield seems the sort of place that swung disproportionately to Labour this year, and if the local MP being convicted of being a nonce had any extra negative impact then it’s hardly going to have any less in a by-election...

[JimJamUK]

A rather rude hunch but wonder if this is a reaction to the fact he very much seemed the spare, rather than the heir on the shortlist.

Yeah, if there is genuine local anger at a stitch-up then it can result in support for the non-anointed candidate. The most obvious recent example of this being in Bassetlaw in 2019 where the national party blocked the very popular council leader from standing and instead shortlisted a far left councillor from elsewhere in Nottinghamshire, and a pro-remain former Camden councillor. Local members were so pissed they voted for the latter (of course this being a stitch-up, the NEC forced the Corbynista on them anyways).

[JimJamUK]

As recent electoral evidence demonstrates, the council isn't that unpopular at all. Its hardly Bolton.

It may have been more a case of many of those wanting a "local" candidate putting all their eggs in one basket when that person was never likely to be selected for reasons already stated.

I would go further. The 2022 and especially the 2021 results are miles better than what Labour would have achieved at the 2019 general election. While there may be other factors, in both years it has been one of the most popular Labour councils in all of England by that measure.

[JimJamUK]

The Green and Lib Dem vote looks surprisingly high (they won’t have 15% between them by election day), but mainly LOL at the Reform vote. It really should be expected given their national polling includes 1/2 the country where they didn’t stand in 2019 and they’re more overtly ‘Tory right’ now, but 3% is reaching ‘prompted name on a survey’ territory.

[JimJamUK]

Wait farmers support protectionism in the UK? Any reason this is so different than in the US?

Among other reasons the UK has a lot more environmental regulation than the US so its not price competitive and therefore it’s not really an export based industry. Rather, it’s quality/made in the UK that forms it’s main appeal. The exports that were done were largely to the EU, which for mainland Britain has resulted in a tough situation for many farmers since Brexit.

[JimJamUK]

FWIW, here's the bands of those 2 polls:

Lab - 48-56%
Con - 28-33%
Green - 2-8%
LD - 2-7%
Ref - 3-3%
Ind - 0-3%
YP - 0-1%
BF - 0-1%

The Survation poll, despite having more parties in their poll, has the major 2 parties noticeably higher. Conversely, the Greens and Lib Dems are much lower (I suspect the truth is an average of the 2 polls). Negligible support for the minor parties, though the indie gets 3%.

[JimJamUK]

Not that it matters but the Wakefield Green candidate seems a bit of a car crash. That 8% poll will probably be well off the mark.

[JimJamUK]

Anyone whose been out in Wakefield would have seen that the independent candidate Akef Akbar (an ex-Tory councillor) is campaigning heavily, his posters are everywhere - probably more than for Labour and certainly more than for the Tories (of which I saw none). 9/10 times. independents do poorly, and the fact he has a lot of posters on lampposts isn’t indicative of actual support, but he may end up taking a good chunk of Tory votes which increases the overall margin of victory for Labour.

I saw on Twitter a Labour activist who has been to the seat claim that he might take more from Labour than the Conservatives. Given that he’s a Muslim from the usually safest Labour ward in the constituency, that may well be the case.

[JimJamUK]

Well, not exactly an internal poll leak, but certainly some expectation-setting:

https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1534485560106143744

Why would a former Liberal Democrat MP know the overall margin and then leak it to the Telegraph? And how do they arrive at the 5000 figure given the exact result is obviously not baked in weeks before the actual election?

Expectation seeking indeed.

[JimJamUK]

I still don’t understand how the prospect of losing Tiverton isn’t causing more a panic- I mean what will the spin be when you lose a by election that had a 25K majority and no local issues?

“The midterms are always poor for the government, the Lib Dems always do well at by-elections, another poor performance by Labour, the people opposed to Boris need to stop the infighting etc”.

[JimJamUK]

If that 'poll' is to be believed then the Lib Dem by-election machine has made absolutely no dent in the Conservative vote (the Conservatives are at 75% of their 2019 vote share in this poll and national polling), yet they have massively squeezed the Labour vote despite Labour doing better nationally.

More likely, the Lib Dems have produced a 'poll' (or as the article states, canvassing returns) that shows them close and Labour dead in the water in order to encourage tactical voting and make sure their activists don't take anything for granted.

[JimJamUK]

If the Old Bexley and Sidcup by election was being held right now. Would the conservatives be likely to loose it ?

Weird things can happen when a government is hideously unpopular, but that’s one of the safest Conservative seats in the country and Labour are the clear but distant challengers, so very probably not.

[JimJamUK]

Though given that, the Tory lead over Labour in the PV there was relatively modest - roughly 49% to 33%. The wards are remarkably uniform in several respects, including electorally.

Speaking of Bexley ward boundaries, in 2002 Labour won a majority on the council despite only getting 33% of the vote and trailing the Conservative by 9%. A good reminder if ever that the headline seat numbers/changes should not be used synonymously with popular support!

[JimJamUK]

Am I right as well that in these sort of ultrasafe seats both parties will have a much sketchier view of where their vote is too…

I would presume so (though given the by-election induced swing I'm not sure prior canvassing would be very accurate anyways). The most prominent example that comes to mind is credible reports that Labour had absolutely no clue who their voters were in Bolsover as well as South Shields only having (I think) a few 100 on record thanks to boundary changes.

[JimJamUK]

It’s not really been discussed but it’s very plausible that if the Lib Dems win it will be down to tactical voting- the Greens got over 2,000 votes in 2019!

I mean let’s put it this way, if there wasn’t a by-election does anybody think that the Lib Dems would be anything but a very distant 3rd in 2024? How you separate out tactical voting vs local campaigning can be difficult, but it’s safe to say that there will be a large number of people voting Lib Dem who are not natural supporters of the party (they wouldn’t be getting 35%+ of the vote in a pr system!).

[JimJamUK]

Yes, it's the 'free hit' issue. You can quite happily vote against the a government that you have come to dislike for this or that reason without risking letting in a government led by those awful Labour chappies. Been a definite phenomenon since the late 1950s.

It doesn’t even require actively voting against. The ~25% of the electorate who vote in general elections but don’t vote after being bombarded by the Lib Dems in a by-election during an unpopular Conservative government are generally not a hoard of closet Lib Dems.