UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[CumbrianLefty]

The chances of Labour failing to win Bridgend in a byelection are not exactly high.

[CumbrianLefty]

It would be interesting to see how he would go down in Hartlepool today.

Heh, was wondering that myself after seeing the scale of the NS swing.

Not impossible it is one of the few places that still remains *relatively* loyal to him - its different from even most of the "red wall" areas it gets bracketed with.

[CumbrianLefty]

It's just a very insular place and can be a bit odd about things. If you look at voting habits (rather than simply who won) then it has one of the stranger post-1918 electoral histories of any large town in England. Of course it has always been odd. They hanged a monkey you know.

Its electoral history from 1832 to 1918 isn't uninteresting either......

[CumbrianLefty]

The writ for the Southend West by-election caused by the murder of Sir David Amess was moved yesterday and the by-election will be on 3 February.  Nominations close on Tuesday.

We know that Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens and Reform UK aren't contesting this, but UKIP have announced a candidate, as have some new outfit called the "English Constitution Party", and far right activist Jayda Fransen is also supposedly standing.

No doubt about the winner of this one.

Something to look for is turnout - the lowest previous figure for a peacetime UK byelection was 18% at Manchester Central in 2012, if a lot of browned off Tory voters stay at home that record could go.

[CumbrianLefty]

The writ for the Southend West by-election caused by the murder of Sir David Amess was moved yesterday and the by-election will be on 3 February.  Nominations close on Tuesday.

We know that Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens and Reform UK aren't contesting this, but UKIP have announced a candidate, as have some new outfit called the "English Constitution Party", and far right activist Jayda Fransen is also supposedly standing.

No doubt about the winner of this one.

Something to look for is turnout - the lowest previous figure for a peacetime UK byelection was 18% at Manchester Central in 2012, if a lot of browned off Tory voters stay at home that record could go.

To be honest I don't think there'll be much point in trying to take anything from the result of this unless something very strange happens.  It's just not a normal by-election.

Its not, but it is reasonably comparable to the 2016 Batley and Spen contest.

Which saw a turnout of 25%, and a vote of 85% for the incumbent party.

So that is perhaps a decent benchmark for this one.

[CumbrianLefty]

FTR only (at this stage) - Birmingham Erdington coming up, following the death of Jack Dromey.

The inevitable speculation and ramping has already started regarding this one.

[CumbrianLefty]

No fringe left candidate is slightly surprising tbh.

[CumbrianLefty]

I think there was some expectation that Breakthrough might try their luck here.

[CumbrianLefty]

There's a likely by-election in Lagan Valley, caused by the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson needing to get himself into the Northern Ireland Assembly in the forthcoming election (this May) if he's going to become First Minister.

Briefly, it looked like this wasn't going to happen after all, because the Government announced a plan to remove the ban on double jobbing between Westminster and Stormont in certain restricted circumstances which looked rather specifically defined to allow Donaldson to remain an MP until the next Westminster election.  But now this plan, which went down pretty badly with everybody other than the DUP and some Tories, has been withdrawn, so the by-election is back on again.

It was noted by some that Ian Paisley Jnr was sitting on the government benches at PMQs yesterday.

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour have shortlisted two candidates- one is a councillor and the other a GMB activist. Would be the first time Labour have selected a black man for a winnable by election since Tottenham 2000?

https://mobile.twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1485534093584617476?ref_src=twsrc%...

Rumoured this one will be "fast-tracked" for March, rather than waiting for the May polls.

[CumbrianLefty]

I'm curious to know how people think the Southend West election to day would go if the other parties hadn't left it uncontested.

You can wonder the same about Batley and Spen in 2016 - at a time when Labour were struggling in the polls rather like the Tories are currently.

But the benchmarks from that one - turnout of 25%, winner getting 85% - remain relevant here IMO. Even if UKIP weren't standing then and are now.

[CumbrianLefty]

Slightly better both turnout and Tory share-wise than I had thought might be the case.

But the number of spoiled ballots shows even a token fringe left candidate would very likely have come second (and taken the winning percentage down a few points)

[CumbrianLefty]

Genuine question - when was the last parliamentary byelection before this one to give Labour/Tories combined over 90% of the vote? Suspect it was some time ago.

[CumbrianLefty]

Genuine question - when was the last parliamentary byelection before this one to give Labour/Tories combined over 90% of the vote? Suspect it was some time ago.

Tooting 2016?

Good spot, that one had totally passed me by. Remarkably similar result in more respects than that one in fact (eg all other candidates losing their deposit, and easily so)

[CumbrianLefty]

TUSC are celebrating though.

Having a party over getting 2% of the vote feels like peak hard-left energy.

Some routine and not at all transparent expectations setting by party "sources" yesterday got the Very Online Left extremely excited about Labour actually losing. Given the totally predictable failure of that to transpire, they are now milking TUSC's result for whatever little it is worth.

[CumbrianLefty]

In some actual potential by-election news, Claudia Webbe's appeal against her conviction has now been delayed until May. Quite possible that Labour might have preferred any poll to be held along with the local elections that month.

[CumbrianLefty]

In this particular case their initial choice of candidate had to be dropped in a hurry after some of his internet history* became public knowledge, but all the same...

_{*And not even the worst bits!}

The easy way to solve that issue is to preemptively ban all Vote2012 users from public office, if not polite society.

Wait what ?

I think the poster of that is themselves an occasional contributor

[CumbrianLefty]

The seat has quite an interesting history; it’s not one of the seats Thatcher won in 1983 (see Darlington, Batley etc) nor is it one of the ones that had huge Labour majorities in say 2010 or 2015.

I suppose the question is whether they would like to get a likely loss* out of the way or to drag things out in the hope that multiple electoral blows don't land in quick succession.

_{*By-elections are inherently unpredictable things but the combination of a) the circumstances b) the national climate and nature of the seat and c) the state of the local Conservative Association is certainly not... ideal from a government perspective, one would assume.}

And (I could be proved wrong on May 5th!) the Labour led council for the city is relatively popular, enough for the deputy leader to run for the seat and not be well shouted down.

They had a relatively poor result last year, but quite a few of the seats lost were by small margins.

[CumbrianLefty]

If you want a laugh in these troubled times, then the weekend "Tories see (Lord) David Frost as their electoral superman to win Wakefield" concoction might just provide it. Quite apart from the trifling matter of it actually being illegal, it shows just how clueless many in that party currently are.

[CumbrianLefty]

(From the THIGMOO thread in IGD)

Muttering Ed Balls might be running in Wakefield and ofc Gordon Brown is briefed as supporting it.

I do respect that he’s the only ex prime Minister who still gets involved in THIGMO beef.

I would be shocked if it happens- I’m not sure he’s local other than previously having a house (I assume) in Morley. Smacks of Hartlepool.

He was MP for the old Normanton constituency before it was abolished and he followed the Outwood wards to Morley & Outwood.  So he has been MP for part of the current Wakefield constituency (Horbury and Ossett) before.  I'm not sure that makes it a good idea though.

From the same story, it appears Ahmad Khan hasn't actually formalised his resignation yet, so we may be waiting a bit longer.

May be waiting for his actual sentencing, due "this week" apparently but further details are elusive.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

Old hands will remember Keir Starmer was being tipped as a future leader about 15 minutes after being elected as an MP for the first time...

Not to mention the leadership speculation that started during Johnson’s time out of Parliament as London Mayor.

He was even regularly cited in "possible PM" polls at that time!

[CumbrianLefty]

Tories certainly won't want this byelection given their recent form.

[CumbrianLefty]

Actually this raises an interesting question - will they want Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton on the same day or a little apart? Get it all out of the way or stagger any blows?

Same day- I was going to say that Wakefield is the easier defence but that just shows how much my brain has been rotted by red wall discourse and how little faith I have in Labours by-election machine…

Given the circumstances of the vacancy, definitely not.

[CumbrianLefty]

The result of Claudia Webbe's appeal against her conviction is due fairly soon, so its not impossible we could have three Westminster byelections in pretty quick succession.

[CumbrianLefty]

Ah yes, there were rumours of that months ago but it now looks set to actually go ahead given that the attempt to reprieve NI "double jobbing" failed.