UK Parliamentary by-elections, 2015 onwards (also devolved legislatures)

[Blair]

Now Labour have decided their candidate the only interest will be whether Labour get between a 10 or 20K majority (which all depends on turnout). I'll probably do some campaigning if I'm back home in time.

Usual chatter within Labour Twitter saying it's a great victory for Moderates (I wouldn't say great) and that it shows the schisms between Unite and Momentum (which will always exist in internal selections). Just like how Corbynsceptics have now united since 2015, the party's left will still unite when the important fights come up, such as NEC elections, Leadership contests etc etc.

The selection served as a rather apt metaphor for everything wrong with Labour- forcing members to spend 4+ hours in a town hall arguing about the rule book.

Daby wins very comfortably on the first ballot. Shiekh second - embarrassingly poor totals for Webbe.

I've seen some people say that both UNITE and momentum picked rather weak candidates- Webbe had no links to the CLP (or even South London) and had links to Livingstone, whilst Shiekh only became a Councillor last week.

Ofc the problem is that the vast majority of Labour Councillors are from the old cohort, so it's not as if there was a wealth of left-wing candidates to pick from.
 

[Blair]

At least the fascist vote is split this time

[Blair]

Despite the low turnout, I think this could herald a small UKIP/Brexit Party resurgence, especially if there’s a long extension and/or soft brexit; although coming second would’ve been much more encouraging for them.

It’s looking like Labour are going to collapse in the heartlands.

Where’s the evidence for this? You do know that in nearly every labour leave seat a majority of labour voters still voted remain... although this post is a fun flashback to when atom Watson and Dennis Skinner were set to lose in 2017 because Mrs Thatcher May was so popular with ‘ordinary labour folk’.

[Blair]

And the reality that Labour lost the economic message decisively in the 2015 campaign; whilst failing to win marginals in places like Croydon, which was hardly down to UKIP. In 2017, you at least had both leaders on equal personal footings by the end, combined with Labour winning the economic argument.

2015 was just a reminder that it's hard for an incumbent to lose unless something changes in the campaign.

If the Brexit issue does place electoral pressure on Labour, it won't be in places like that, I suspect.

And yes; the fetishization of Labour losing it's 'white working class vote' (a story, and theme which I believe has been popular since the 1930s) means that people are ignoring that all it takes is a modest shift/revival for the pro-EU parties, to cost Labour a number of target seats, or current marginals it holds.

To give an example, Ashfield is one of the Labour-Leave seats where the Lib Dems had 7,000 votes in 2015, and fell to 2,000- all it takes is some pissed off pro-Europeans to vote for them, and Labours vote falls. Of course this is just a random example I saw on twitter- but it's a fatal excuse to believe that as Dennis Healey said '[pro-Europeans] have nowhere else to go'.

 

[Blair]

It’s impossible to know as the dynamics of Mays leadership are so different now- the big error has been assuming that people are voting based on the deal- MPs vote based on the political and power dynamics within the party. If May doesn’t call one her political authority would be much much bigger