UK local by-elections, 2023

[Torrain]

The Reform UK candidate in Northamptonshire with what I think is a Palestinian name... there's got to be a story there.

Reform (and the Brexit Party before them) have actually had a fairly diverse slate of candidates.

Former MEP Louis Stedman-Bryce was the first black parliamentarian elected in Scotland (not the first non-white though, we have a number of South Asian MSPs, and a handful of MPs and former MPs).

A number of their London, Yorkshire and Durham candidates in 2019 were South Asian.

And in Islington North, they nominated Yosef David, an Orthodox Jewish candidate, in 2019. Although that was for clear political reasons, given the incumbent‘s record on issues related to Israel and Judaism more broadly.

There’s also Ann Widdecombe - which proves they have no problem with non-human candidates either.

[Torrain]

I believe that with that gain, the Tories (8 ) move ahead of the SNP (7) on Stirling Council. Third-place Labour (6) will probably still stay in control of the council, thanks to the weirdness of Scottish coalition building.

SNP and Labour won’t vote for a Tory leader, SNP also won’t vote for Labour. But Tories will lend Labour the votes to prevent the SNP winning control.

[Torrain]

I’ve seen it several times, and I’m still computing that Cripplegate is an electoral ward.

Part of my brain keeps assuming that new WhatsApp messages have leaked showing a government minister making jokes about the physically disabled.

[Torrain]

I’ve seen it several times, and I’m still computing that Cripplegate is an electoral ward.

Part of my brain keeps assumes that new WhatsApp messages have leaked showing a government minister making jokes about the physically disabled.

What sort of scandal do you associate with Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate (sadly not a ward name) in York?

The private request that Jacob Rees-Mogg made to a York woman, that was overheard and led to his resignation from the Commons?

[Torrain]

Ah, what would Highlands Council be without its enduring love of independent candidates.

SNP topped the ballot for this ward in 2022, and have now gone from first to third place. The Highlands constituency this seat sits in was a narrow Lib Dem victory in 2019, and an SNP notional on new boundaries - going to be an interesting race next year.

[Torrain]

There's an interesting by-election happening in the SNP ward of Motherwell South East and Ravenscraig on the 16th. Because Scotland elects councils via STV with multi-member wards, the party that topped the ballot in 2022 often ends up picking up easy seats when councillors picked as the second or third member (from other parties) resign.

But here, an SNP councillor has resigned, prompting a head-to-head race between them and Labour, who held 3/4 of the ward’s seats as recently as 2012, but reduced to 1/4. It's a ward that should be more favourable to Labour under current polling, so another temperature check on whether the dramatic shift in Scottish polling is being borne out.

It's part of the Motherwell and Wishaw constituency at Westminster - a Central Belt seat that the SNP won by 6k in 2019, but only 1.5k in 2017. If there's going to be a ScotLab revival - it'll need to start in places like Motherwell, the home seat of Jack McConnell, the last Labour First Minister.

[Torrain]

With the final by-elections of the year done, here’s a visualisation of results in the by-elections held since the May local elections, via Election Maps UK:


Thanks again to YL for posting the results in this thread each week, it's been a great resource.