UK By-elections thread, 2021-

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Candidates gathering on the stage at Tamworth...

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Tamworth

Labour 11719 (45.8%, +22.1)
Con 10403 (40.7%, -25.6)
Reform UK 1373 (5.4%, new)
Britain First 580 (2.3%, new)
UKIP 436 (1.7%, -0.1)
Lib Dem 417 (1.6%, -3.6)
Green 417 (1.6%, -0.4)
OMRLP 155 (0.6%, new)
Longman 86 (0.3%, new)

Lab gain from Con
Majority 1316
Swing 23.8%

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Well, mea culpa w/my earlier anticipation of underperformance for Reform UK.

They ought to be doing better than that in Tamworth if their polling is accurate.

The worst thing about this result is Britain First getting a not completely embarrassing result.

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Mid Bedfordshire

Labour 13872 (34.1%, +12.4)
Con 12680 (31.1%, -28.6)
Lib Dem 9420 (23.1%, +10.5)
Mackey 1865 (4.6%, new)
Reform UK 1487 (3.7%, new)
Green 732 (1.8%, -2.0)
OMRLP 249 (0.6%, -0.2)
Eng Dem 107 (0.3%, new)
CPA 101 (0.2%, new)
True and Fair 93 (0.2%, -1.0 on the candidate's result as Independent)
Heritage 63 (0.2%, new)
Emperor of India 27 (0.1%, new)
Mainstream 24 (0.1%, new)

Lab gain from Con
Majority 1192
Swing 20.5%

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Another Labour gain in a post-industrial, rural Red Wall seat.

Well, they did use to make the materials for Red Walls here.

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As a historical point, I'm surprised the Wilson government had such a horror run of by elections-does that mean they were always going to lose 1970?

They were extremely unpopular for a time. The 1968 local election results were notoriously an extreme disaster for Labour, with the Tories winning in all sorts of places you’d never expect them to and Labour not winning a single seat in Birmingham.

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Monstrous swing. The parts of the constituency outside Tamworth town put a hard limit on things, and yet nevertheless...

Btw, as far as social and economic structures are concerned, the area has changed quite substantially since the 1990s (not in Labour's favour at all) and Pincher had a 2:1 lead over Labour in 2015.

Just to note - the parts of the constituency outside Tamworth town have always been included in the seat. This isn't relevant to comparisons with previous results.

That's why I was careful to avoid any implied references to boundaries! Since the constituency was created in 1983, Labour have always needed to run up a big margin in Tamworth as the size of the Conservative vote in the rest of the constituency is enough to swing even a narrow Labour lead in Tamworth town into a solid Conservative majority across the constituency.* Major changes to the local economy (and so to its social structure) have made this a lot harder to achieve: it is not a basically independent manufacturing town with a lot of links to Birmingham as it was in the 90s, but a Birmingham orbital town with an economy driven by distribution and related industries (even if there remains a reasonable amount of manufacturing, though even there some of the employment is e.g. commuting elsewhere now), and places like that rapidly turned into a Labour death zone across most of the country long before Brexit, even if that then did lead to a further turning of the screw - as must have some of the issues relating to Corbyn's image, especially hostility towards the armed forces which went down like a cold glass of vomit in Staffordshire for obvious reasons. But, again, the notable thing about this constituency is the two-to-one Conservative lead as early as 2015.

_{*E.g. it's possible that Brian Jenkins about tied the vote in Tamworth in 2010 as Labour only trailed by 5pts in the locals on the same day. Lost by 13pts across the constituency anyway. Of course Jenkins being a locally well-known and popular figure - like a surprising number of other nationally low profile New Labour era backbenchers, come to think of it - is another issue.}

How do you think Little Aston voted in the 1996 by-election?

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How do you think Little Aston voted in the 1996 by-election?

FWIW, the Tories got 84% in a straight fight in 1995…

What a ridiculous place.

Ben Walker (Britain Elects/New Statesman) did a broadcast this afternoon which included estimates of how each ward in Mid Beds and Tamworth voted yesterday (YouTube link).  The numbers for the ward containing Little Aston don't look as lopsided as I'd expected, though I think his model does have a tendency to even things out across constituencies.

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Here are the performances by "populist right" parties at English by-elections this Parliament.  I've excluded Southend West, as it was uncontested by the main opposition parties.

I chose not to include the Christian People's Alliance (more religious right than populist right), the Freedom Alliance (more conspiracy theorists and anti-lockdown policies than any sort of nationalist tendencies) or Piers Corbyn's Let London Live (similar to Freedom Alliance) although there's some fishing in the same pool going on.  I also didn't include George Galloway, although I suspect he was also fishing in that pool to some extent, and the lowly position of Batley & Spen in the list supports that thesis.

Including the SDP might be a little controversial among some of their supporters but based on what I've seen of their literature is the correct decision.

Tamworth Reform UK 5.4%, Britain First 2.3%, UKIP 1.7%
Old Bexley & Sidcup Reform UK 6.6%, Eng Dem 1.3%, UKIP 0.8%, Heritage 0.5%
North Shropshire Reform UK 3.8%, Reclaim 1.0%, UKIP 1.0%, Heritage 0.2%
Selby & Ainsty Reform UK 3.7%, SDP 0.9%, Heritage 0.5%
-----above here they collectively got enough to save a deposit-----
West Lancashire Reform UK 4.4%
Mid Bedfordshire Reform UK 3.7%, Eng Dem 0.3%, Heritage 0.2%
Somerton & Frome Reform UK 3.4%, UKIP 0.7%
Wakefield Reform UK 1.9%, Britain First 1.1%, UKIP 0.5%, Eng Dem 0.5%
Stretford & Urmston Reform UK 3.5%, SDP 0.4%
City of Chester Reform UK 2.7%, UKIP 0.6%
Uxbridge & South Ruislip Reclaim 2.3%, SDP 0.8%, UKIP 0.2%
Hartlepool Heritage 1.6%, Reform UK 1.2%, SDP 0.4%
Tiverton & Honiton Reform UK 1.1%, UKIP 0.6%, Heritage 0.4%, For Britain 0.3%
Batley & Spen Eng Dem 0.6%, UKIP 0.4%, For Britain 0.3%, SDP 0.2%, Heritage 0.1%, Ind Fransen 0.1%
Birmingham Erdington Reform UK 1.7%
Chesham & Amersham Reform UK 1.1%

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Commons has voted (without a division) to suspend Peter Bone for six weeks.

Bone won up to as much as 62% of the vote in 2019, with Labour less than half that. So a long way to come back from.

However, the seat has an 18k Tory majority - smaller than Tamworth (19.6k), Mid Beds (24.6k), Somerton (19.2k), Selby (20.1k). Clear two-way Labour-Conservative race - the Lib Dems rarely even keep their deposit there these days.

It was Labour in 1997 and 2001 and Bone only narrowly won in 2005.  A small area, basically the town of Earls Barton and its immediate surroundings, was transferred to Daventry in 2010; this might have helped Labour a little, but only a little, given that the seat was still notionally Tory.

We won't know the outcome of the petition until just before Christmas (the petition doesn't open until 10 working days after the Speaker notifies North Northamptonshire Council, and is then open for six weeks, which I think means it should open on Thursday 9 November and close on Wednesday 20 December) which means that any by-election won't be until February, unless Bone follows Pincher by taking the Chiltern Hundreds.

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Blunt will only resign if he has a personality transplant or is convicted. And criminal proceedings are presently taking forever due to 'this government messing up the courts system'.

Yes, a by-election arising from this seems rather unlikely.

(And I will again add that even Tory MPs are innocent until proven guilty.)

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North Northamptonshire Council have published the dates for the Peter Bone recall petition, per the BBC. Should run Nov 8th-Dec 19th, with results published the following day.

Sounds like a February by-election, if it's approved. Commons goes into recess on the 19th of Dec, so writ couldn't be moved until near the middle of January.

Here's North Northants Council's page announcing the recall, confirming those dates.

There are nine signing centres, three each in Wellingborough town and Rushden and one each in Great Doddington, Finedon and Irchester.  It does feel like this process must be a bit of an annoyance to a council landed with having to run it.

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If this by-election happens then it'll be interesting to see who the Tory candidate is and what Bone does.

(I think the recall will almost certainly pass, but I don't think it's impossible that the Government decides not to hold a by-election on the grounds that the General Election is imminent.  They could definitely get away with that if they're going for June or earlier for the GE; it's much more debatable if they're going for later than that.)

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Here are the top twelve Lower Super Output Areas for deprivation in the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation for England.  As this is England only, Rhyl does not feature.

1. Tendring 018A (i.e. part of Jaywick, Essex)
2. Blackpool 010A (in Bloomfield ward)
3. Blackpool 006A (in Claremont ward)
4. Blackpool 013B (Bloomfield again)
5. Blackpool 013A (and again)
6. Blackpool 013D (in Waterloo ward)
7. Blackpool 010E (in Talbot ward)
8. Blackpool 011A (back in Bloomfield)
9. Blackpool 008D (Claremont again)
10. Liverpool 019C (in Anfield ward)
11. Blackpool 006B (Claremont again)
12. Blackpool 013C (Bloomfield yet again)

Claremont is in Blackpool North & Cleveleys but will move to South in the next General Election; the other Blackpool wards listed are already in South.

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The Wellingborough recall outcome is expected at around 8pm this evening, apparently.

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A bit lower than I'd expected, though not really close to failing.

Bone has said that he "will have more to say on these matters in the New Year".  Perhaps he is intending to stand in the by-election.  (Assuming it happens: if Sunak is definitely planning a spring election and happy for people to infer this it probably won't.)

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Apart from the rigged one, every recall petition has easily passed. Is this a good thing? I'm of two minds.

The interesting thing is that the current system is a weird hybrid; it was originally intended that a recall would happen if you were suspended for longer than 10 days from the House. This often only happened in rather obvious breaches of rules of traditional parliamentary rules e.g not declaring free flights or hotel trips, doing lobbying etc and this had to be investigated by the standards committee and was relatively rare.

But then the ICG scheme was introduced which specifically created a body that could investigate bullying and sexual harassment by MPs; this has in several cases reported and caused MPs to quit rather than face the indignity of a recall.

By my count this is the 10th by election related to members personal conduct

It has never been said but I assumed the hope is that one way to stop this behaviour is that for MPs to realise that breaches of the behaviour code will lead them to lose their jobs; I can't recall all the reports but the committee & body basically now have a button (recommendation of suspension for more than 10 days) which can lead to a by election.

Yes, it’s definitely a record for members resigning or being recalled due to scandal. It’s interesting to look at how the makeup of by-elections has changed over the years; before the expenses scandal (which led directly to the resignations of Michael Martin and Ian Gibson and helped midwife the recall system) it was basically unheard of for MPs to resign because of a scandal. Instead, the principle cause of by-elections tended to be deaths, which have declined dramatically in recent parliaments, presumably due to most MPs being younger/healthier. It would be interesting to have seen how many by-elections the Major government would have had to endure had the modern rules and mores around the personal conduct of MPs been in place then.

Certainly Colne Valley and Bosworth, as those MPs actually did get suspensions which would have triggered the recall procedure had it existed.  The report into the better known Hamilton/Smith case didn't report until after the 1997 election, when both were no longer MPs.

As you say most by-elections back then were due to deaths, whereas since 2010 they're roughly equally split between deaths, scandal and people taking other jobs, with a few which don't really fall into any of those categories.

One cause which has of course completely disappeared but used to appear from time to time was the MP inheriting a hereditary peerage (before 1963, whether they wanted it or not).

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My prediction for Wellingborough is as follows:

LAB 51
CON 29
RFM 7
IND 6
GRN 3
LDM 2
OTH 2

Which, putting the precise numbers aside because they don't actually matter, is that if Bone stands (him standing is not in itself a prediction, just to be clear) he will just about save his deposit but overall perform rather poorly. I might be reading too much into past support for right-of-the-Conservatives parties in my Reform prediction but I underestimated them last time, so. A steady Green vote on the surface, plenty of churn beneath, but the Lib Dem vote collapses and tactically heads for Labour.

I think you’ve overestimated the swing in Wellingborough. Repeating the swing in Selby & Ainsty/Tamworth you would get a Labour win of about 10%.

My assumption is that with Wellingborough lacking the more anti-Labour 'rural' (well, you know what I mean: I'm not going to use 'exurban') elements of those two constituencies, and also the demographics not having changed as much as in Tamworth, the swing in the towns to Labour will count for more. Also see that the Bone % to the Conservative %--which has no parallel in either constituency--gets you a total of 35% and Labour down to a 16-point majority.

Someone on Vote UK said that the word from the count in Selby & Ainsty was that Labour carried Ouseburn division.  That may be because the Green candidate, who is a councillor there, took some disaffected Tory votes which were never going Labour and so effectively split the anti-Labour vote, but it still suggests that Labour did OK in the rural part of that seat.  Also, the Tory results in the more rural by-elections this Parliament have been especially terrible, though of course the main beneficiaries have been the Lib Dems.

I'm not going to attempt to predict Wellingborough until we know for sure that it is happening and whether or not Bone is standing (and who for).

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I agree that there's a considerable downside, but he denies at least the most serious allegations and I suspect that a substantial proportion of their potential vote will be sympathetic to the idea that he's been hard done by.

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Per Michael Crick, the Tories have invited applications to be their candidate in the Wellingborough by-election, with a deadline of 4pm today.  This would suggest that they think it is going to happen.

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Kilfedder actually died in 1995 together with his micro-party,  and the resulting byelection returned an MP who was less reliable for the Tories (at least at that time)

Those who haven't read it should read Nicholas Whyte's account of the North Down by-election (from, of course, the Alliance point of view).  Perhaps, though, it should have an addendum mentioning the fact that one of the Alliance party workers mentioned in the article is now the constituency's MP.

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It looks like we can add Kingswood to the list of likely by-elections, following Chris Skidmore's statement just now.

It's in the Bristol suburban belt outside the city boundary in South Gloucestershire.  It's a marginal, Tory-held since 2010, with some mining history, and is being split at the next election, with the more Labour bits going into a new (and essentially safe Labour) Bristol North East, and the rest having Jacob Rees-Mogg inflicted on them, at least as Tory candidate.

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It looks like we can add Kingswood to the list of likely by-elections, following Chris Skidmore's statement just now.

It's in the Bristol suburban belt outside the city boundary in South Gloucestershire.  It's a marginal, Tory-held since 2010, with some mining history, and is being split at the next election, with the more Labour bits going into a new (and essentially safe Labour) Bristol North East, and the rest having Jacob Rees-Mogg inflicted on them, at least as Tory candidate.

Part of its also going in to marginal seat Filton & Bradley Stoke.

I’m heading to Kingswood today to see what happens.

Indeed, I forgot Emersons Green, which does indeed go to F & BS.

Might Conservatopia be tempted to stand?

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Labours move is made harder by the fact the Bristol NE PPC is currently the Mayor of Lewisham (he grew up in Bristol and beat the v unpopular mayor of Bristol in the selection) and it’s rumoured that Dan Norris might run against Mogg- he’s the current mayor of the south west and is (I assume) up for re-election.

So might be tempting for labour to find some staffer or councillor to run as a placeholder…

The West of England mayoralty isn't up until 2025.  I think Norris can stand in a by-election; I don't think there's any rule stopping someone being both a Metro Mayor and an MP, as long as the mayoralty doesn't have the Police and Crime Commissioner powers, which this one doesn't.  (Indeed Dan Jarvis was an MP throughout his term as Mayor of South Yorkshire, not that that's the happiest precedent IMO.)

A placeholder strikes me as a bad idea.

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The Conservatives have selected their candidate for Wellingborough. And an interesting choice it is.

I suppose it means that Bone won't be standing as an independent.