UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Coldstream]

Southend is one of the southern towns and cities where Labour is surging

I was not aware that this was a thing -- what's the deal?

There are quite a few places in urban southern England with fairly average demographics where Labour have really underperformed since the 80s onwards. Just as the Conservatives have benefitted from depolarisation in the #RedWall, Labour can do so in these places as well. There’s also some that would be trending Labour in absence of other political change, as they become more popular with younger commuters and similar things.

I don't think that really applies to Southend, where Labour has underperformed since there has been a Labour Party. Labour historically did badly in seaside towns until they broke through in 1997, but this didn't happen in Southend, mostly because the boundaries split Labour strength in the city centre between the two constituencies. The closest we've ever come to winning a seat in the city was in a 1980 by-election at the height of Thatcher's unpopularity.

Labour success in recent years seems mostly to be a consequence of it now behaving less as a seaside town and more as a peripheral urban centre to London.

Through, seaside towns seems to be moving. Brighton, Portsmouth (on the Westminster level), Bournemouth, Poole and, of course, Worthing.

Weston super mare too, Labour won the vote there in the 2023 council elections.

I also do think Poole has the potential to be one of our shock gains if we do win a landslide. It’s actually got a councillor (maybe 2?) there now.

[Coldstream]

W-s-M had a massive Tory majority at the most recent GE, but it does come across as one of those places where that could have been a "last hurrah" for them.

And it does of course have a fairly recent precedent for not voting Tory.

Boundary review changes it a lot, removes all the rural part to Wells & Mendip Hills. It’s majority on current boundaries probably wouldn’t be that different from those in other Labour target seats in the SW like PMV or North Swindon.

[Coldstream]

Well, its maybe interesting if it is maintained - and the coming GE could tell us a bit about that.

("SNP wins most Catholics when it is winning almost everywhere" maybe isn't that earth shattering - sorry if this appears a little cynical)

the interesting aspect is that they reversed the historical pattern and became a party that did better with gene pool (Irish) Catholics than Protestants, that's fairly unique for a nationalist party. It's basically the equivalent of if Catalan nationalists hypothetically did better among descendants of Andalusian migrants than among Catalan speakers.

Agree with Halifax that this is an important trend to note.

But can it not be explained fairly simply? The SNP moved away from their traditional tartan Tory approach, wearing kilts and being exclusively “Scottish” (which put off many Irish Catholics historically- Monklands being an obvious example) and moved to Scottish Nationalism being about rejecting England/Westminster - and adopted a less exclusive concept of what being “Scottish” was, which therefore appealed more to Irish catholics - but also other ethnic minorities who’d historically voted Labour.

I mean, i’m as an anti-SNP as they come, but no one can accuse them of being blood & soil nationalists - or even particularly Scottish chauvinists - so it’s not that surprising that they attract a more diverse pool of voters than other nationalist parties.

Also CL has a point - the SNP won everywhere & every group pretty much in 2015 - so whilst there’s individual explanations for why they improved across the board, we won’t know until the next GE how solid their support is.

[Coldstream]

Interesting that the Conservative candidate in Mid Bedfordshire is LDS. Is that at all common in the UK and might it affect the outcome?

There are two LDS temples in the UK, one in Surrey and one in Chorley, Lancashire, so it's not that unusual, and we have had Mormon MPs; Terry Rooney, Labour MP for Bradford North from 1990 to 2010, was the first.  I don't think it'd be a big deal unless the media pick up on some particularly controversial view related to his religion.

Do temples have a specific meaning beyond simply a religious house of worship in LDS? I ask because I know for a fact there are more than 2 LDS church’s in the UK - I’ve been to at least 2 that have been polling stations.

Agree with the above though, no one would care - and few would even notice - that the candidate is a Mormon in of itself.

[Coldstream]

What do people think the chances are of a genuine three way split in Mid Beds?

I’m still not convinced the Lib Dem vote will be anywhere near high enough for them to make it a genuine three way contest - they don’t seem to be having much cut through so far.

[Coldstream]

What do people think the chances are of a genuine three way split in Mid Beds?

It's only likely if there is significant confusion in the area as to who the "tactical" choice to beat the Tories is. Both Labour and Lib Dems are claiming that they are, of course, but that doesn't mean very much. I have not been on the ground so can't really comment; perhaps Coldstream has been?

If the Lib Dems can't persuade people that they are the tactical choice I don't think they'll be anywhere near making it a three way split. They are still the bookies' favourites, but their odds have been lengthening.

Nah I’m in Rutherglen - but I know people I’ve spoken to aren’t concerned about them. There’s a bit of posturing on twitter to make sure the vote is as degraded as possible - but no one seems to be concerned.

[Coldstream]

Already seeing Mid Beds being described as a marginal and a tough race! The funny thing is Tamworth is easier to win and  you can make a case re it being on labours paths to a large majority/winning back the Blair coalition but like losing Mid Beds is just hilariously awful.

The Tories moved the writ for Tamworth yesterday, but it's not to be issued until Thursday, which following the 21 to 27 working days rule puts polling day on 19 October, the same as for Mid Bedfordshire.

The Tories have a three name shortlist which according to Michael Crick does not include Eddie Hughes's wife but does include another Tory MP's wife, Karen Treacy, wife of Craig Tracey, and Tom Byrne, an advisor to Andy Street (West Midlands metro mayor), who missed out to Hughes in the original selection. I haven't seen anything new on whether whoever is selected is just a stopgap for Hughes.

I think re the last line that assumption still holds- although the sitting MP if they won gets to go on the lifeboat list which lets you seat shop.

Ironically if the stop gal wins Tamworth they may end up with an even safer seat out of this from a last minute retirement,

[Coldstream]

Went out in Mid Beds today. Was surprised at how good the reception was - it felt like we are ahead, but that the Lib Dem’s aren’t completely out of it. There seems to be fewer people than you’d expect considering them though, lots of “it’s a waste of a vote because they won’t be in government” sentiment.

I actually met a Reform canvasser today, he seemed optimistic they’d be keeping their despot - not sure how likely that is but they are working it.

I’ve never been anywhere that has such visceral, fixated, hatred on one person (Dorries) - I honestly found less hostility towards the Pedo ex-MP in Wakefield. It’s very hard to see the Tories holding on outside of a very weird vote split.

Would add that we seemed to be ahead on garden stakes, not sure how much that’s worth but it’s surprising the Lib Dem’s aren’t running away with that.

[Coldstream]

Unskew the polls!

The reform vote looks too high and I really doubt G*** M***er tiny party is going to get 4%.

I’m curious how the long campaign has been influencing this race; I know from a family friend who lives in the seat that they have had leaflets from Labour and the Liberals and been invited to a ‘coffee and chat’ with Labours PPC.

To be fair, the Gina Miller candidate stood in 2019 as an independent - he also stood in the local elections and nearly won a council seat. So he’s probably got some local name recognition (though I doubt it’s worth 4%).

[Coldstream]

The interesting thing is that I reckon even before the SNP wars begun this seat might have flipped- iirc even in May 2021 labour almost won a by election in Scotland despite putting absolutely no investment in it.

I can’t recall the seat name perhaps begun with an A?

Airdrie & Shotts, we were 1.7k off. It was a real sleeper by-election caused by an SNP MP switching to holy rood iirc.

[Coldstream]

I don’t think we are particularly bullish on Tamworth, it’s a very different kettle of fish to Selby.

Mid Beds is completely up in the air and could go in any direction. Wouldn’t be shocked if the Tories hold both, although if I had to bet I’d say they don’t.

[Coldstream]

I know it's a Lib Dem leaflet - but still, by even their own recent standards, this is a stretch:

Especially given the graph seems to be invented wholecloth.

Predictably desperate from a party that has no ideology or message beyond “We’re not the Tories and Labour can’t win here”. I’ve never understood how anyone can think so little of themselves that they go out and campaign for these people.

[Coldstream]

Absolutely thrashed the Lib Dem’s. Should kill them off across the country and force them to stick to a few dozen deeply Tory seats.

[Coldstream]

It’s been briefed overnight that the Tories are fine because ‘Starmer isn’t Blair so it won’t be 1997’(the fun counter is that 2024 could end up in political memory as being worse!) and that voters really want tax cuts and flights to Rwanda. What a strange party.

They are doing what I suspected and seeing the harder right votes in each seat (which were slightly higher than usual for a parliamentary by-election) as the main lesson to draw. Alternatively it could be an attempt by Sunak to shore up his internal position ahead of his immunity to a challenge formally expiring within a few days. Probably a mixture of the two actually.

From what I saw of Tamworth & Mid Beds the Reform/hard right vote hates the Tories more than they hate us. And won’t go back to them for a while at least.

[Coldstream]

I don't know much about U.K. Politics. My question I have . if Tories are losing Mid Bedfordshire district how many safe seats can they have? 100?

If the Conservatives lost Mid-Beds in a general election, on a nation-wide swing towards Labour, we'd be talking about an exctinction level event. Attempting to model those sorts of results produces *insane* maps, like this, from ElectionMapsUK:


Labour: 480 (+284)
Lib Dem: 104 (+96)
Conservative: 20 (-356)
SNP: 23 (-25)
Plaid Cymru: 3 (+1)
Green: 1 (=)

In the event, things *almost certainly* won't be that bad for the Tories - going below 200 is hard, 150 is harder, and dipping below 100 is - well... unlikely.

In practise what would prevent them going as low as 20 is the Labour/Lib Dem vote split - which even after Mid Beds is still likely to save them in dozens of seats without concentrated campaigns from either Labour or Lib Dem’s. Though personally I no longer think below 150 is all that unlikely given the scale of their vote’s disintegration.

[Coldstream]

In practise what would prevent them going as low as 20 is the Labour/Lib Dem vote split - which even after Mid Beds is still likely to save them in dozens of seats without concentrated campaigns from either Labour or Lib Dem’s. Though personally I no longer think below 150 is all that unlikely given the scale of their vote’s disintegration.

Fair point - in a wipeout scenario the lack of a clear option (where one has never been needed) is probably the saving grace for a number of government MPs.

The thing that I think is most interesting about the wipeout scenario, is whether those last seats go to Labour or the Lib Dems. A 500 Lab, 40 Lib Dem, 20 Tory parliament probably produces a country that's much different from the 400 Lab, 110 Lib Dem, 20 Tory scenario, given the latter has a clear opposition party, and the former has to wait either for a clear challenger to (re)emerge and claim the opposition mantle, or a formal Labour split.

Yeah I expect them to hold on to more than a few seats with splits something like 35-30-25, similar to what happened in 1997. There will be fewer cases of that happening nowadays with tactical voting being more common & understood, but probably enough to survive at the very least as the opposition.

[Coldstream]

I’d heavily bet against a Reigate by-election. I doubt there will be time for criminal proceedings to complete before a GE, and I seriously doubt Blunt would resign.

[Coldstream]

Reform have announced ex-MEP Ben Habib as their candidate for Wellingborough.

Choosing Bone would always have been an odd choice considering their campaign nationally is against Tory sleaze.

[Coldstream]

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.

[Coldstream]

If you believe this Guardian report from Wellingborough the Tories have "all but given up" and are in danger of being overtaken by Reform UK.

Possibly the most desperate case of expectations management in history if they expect us to believe it’ll be a victory if they can manage second in a seat with an 18k majority.

[Coldstream]

The most likely result is probably still Azhar Ali winning, but really few results would be surprising under the circumstances.

[Coldstream]

It seems to me that for Galloway not to win either (a) the Muslim vote has to be rather weaker for him than it has been in his last two by-election outings or (b) the part of the Labour vote which doesn't go Galloway has to stick with Ali to a fairly large extent. (Or a bit of both, of course.) There's also (c) the anti-Galloway vote gets behind a single non-Ali candidate, but I haven't got the impression that that's happening.

(b) seems a bit unlikely to me. Of course some will stick with him, because they don't know or they don't care or they simply don't want Galloway to win. But I think a significant chunk of people who would otherwise have voted Labour will either stay at home or vote for someone else. (Who? Probably a mix: some Lib Dem, some Reform UK, some one of the Independents, maybe the odd one for the Loony. Even the Tory might pick up a few.)

I think (a) is hard to judge from the outside, but if I have to guess I'd say Galloway wins. If (a) does happen I assume Ali wins. In either scenario the winning vote share could be unusually low.

I think b assumes that people care/know a lot more about what’s happened to Ali than I think people will. He’s still down as Labour on the ballot paper at the end of the day and PV’s had started before he was dropped.

Fundamentally, only 30% of the seat is Muslim too, there’s not really any margin of error for Galloway (who is a lot more tainted than he was in 2012).

[Coldstream]

He’s not exactly tweeting like a man expecting to win either.

[Coldstream]

I think the election will help to answer a fundamental question about how much the public knows/cares about the ins and outs of political stories.

I’ll also point out that Labour might have disavowed Ali, but that’s consisted of abandoning him not denouncing him & encouraging Labour voters to do something else. I still think the average Labour voter in Rochdale will go in to the ballot box and put the X next to the Labour candidate. Question is if enough stay home/know not to do that that Galloway turning out a few thousand angry people is enough to win.

[Coldstream]

Hah! Guess people do pay more attention than they get credit.

It’s annoying because despite the fact we’ll walk this seat in the GE, the cowards in HQ will insist on wasting time and resources to beat Galloway.

May be interesting to see if Galloway actually runs in Rochdale in a GE or chooses a seat more favourable to him.