UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[YL]

Reform/Brexit got 3.5% in the seat back in 2019 - wonder what the benchmark is for them to impress here?

If I had to guess - anything over 5% feels like a good soft target for them (saved deposits make for a moral victory I guess), anything over 10% is a pretty good night, and coming in any lower than 2019 feels like a bad omen for them.

So just avoiding your "bad omen" but well short of the "good soft target".  I think it's more consistent with a national score around 5% than the higher ones in some polls.

I think the Lib Dems ought to be disappointed, losing their deposit, being beaten by the Greens and only just avoiding being beaten by Reform UK, though I think they didn't try very hard.

[YL]

Labour and Greens will be moderately pleased.

Probably their best by-election result this Parliament, which given their vote went up 1.6% to 4.3%, is pretty faint praise. So far both the Greens and Reform look like paper tigers judging by the by-elections this Parliament, which will not be good news for them when we get the ‘national tactical vote’ squeeze on minor parties come the general election. The Greens can still hope for a by-election in a safe Labour seat where they have a local presence, I’m not sure where Reform would be able to position themselves as a serious challengers to the Tories?

Somewhere safe enough that Labour are unlikely to seriously challenge and so Brexity that that is still a problem for the Lib Dems?  Gavin Williamson's seat might be a candidate, if he were to stand down for some reason.

Of course, we've already had a by-election this Parliament somewhere a bit like that (Old Bexley & Sidcup) and they only got 6.6%.

[YL]

I think Cameron's attempts to "modernise" the Tory Party were a significant factor in UKIP's appeal to previously Tory voters, and that does include same sex marriage as well as environmental issues.  But I'd agree that they were a fairly small part of UKIP's appeal overall.

The unavailability of the Lib Dems for protest purposes in the Coalition years is, I think, underrated as a factor, because people underestimate the extent to which UKIP's and the pre-Coalition Lib Dems' appeal overlapped; they genuinely didn't have much in common ideologically, but that's not the same thing.

(Is the return of the Lib Dem by-election surge making it harder for Reform UK to make an impact?  I'm not convinced; only three by-elections in this Parliament have had strong Lib Dem performances, which leaves plenty of opportunities for Reform UK.)

[YL]

Looking like West Lancashire will go to the polls on February 9th.

Yes, and the deadline for nominations is this Friday.  (This seems remarkably a short timescale, but I suppose everyone has known this by-election was pending for long enough that parties should have got their act together with their candidates by now.)

[YL]

Still miss the weekly round-up of council byelections on here, ngl.

We could always try to start one again.

On the Parliamentary front, West Lancashire has just six candidates:

Jo Barton (Lib Dem)
Peter Cranie (Green)
Ruth Ashley Dalton (Lab)
Howling Laud Hope (OMRLP)
Jonathan Kay (Reform UK)
Mike Prendergast (Con)

[YL]

West Lancashire is today, not that I knew until I just saw a single mention of it on Twitter.

It's not exactly the most exciting by-election, is it?

Anyway, here's Andrew Teale's preview.

[YL]

Lab 14068 (62.3%)
Con 5742 (25.4%)
Reform 994 (4.4%)
Lib Dem 918 (4.1%)
Green 646 (2.9%)
Loony 210 (0.9%)

Turnout 31.4%

[YL]

All other parties losing their deposit was not what quite a few predicted.

Well, it's byelection-style statistical noise in a constituency where there traditionally hasn't been much heft beyond LabCon.  And it also reflects a moment when the generic anti-LabCon vote has "spread out", as opposed to the old days of Lib Dem as a singular NOTA standby or the more recent oxygen-hogging by UKIP/Brexitty types of parties...   

I don't think any of them seriously tried, and I also don't think any of them have enough of a natural base in that constituency to be able to do much better than that when they don't seriously try.  So I'm not surprised (and, though my prediction in another place wasn't particularly good overall, I did have the right parties losing their deposits).

[YL]

All true enough, but polls consistently have Greens and Reform doing decently. The former might hope for some votes from left wingers browned off with Starmer, the latter aren't exactly lacking in hacked off Tories as a pool to fish in right now. And tbh the demographics of this one are arguably a bit more exploitable by a populist right outfit than the previous two NW byelections in recent months were.

Part of the thing is that I'm sceptical of Reform UK's (and to extent also the Greens') higher polling figures.

Also I suspect that without much of a visible campaign the voters most susceptible to the populist right just won't have voted.

[YL]

Meanwhile, a certain "senior political commentator" at the Independent has given their assessment of this byelection result. Three guesses as to what it is.....

"This is wonderful news for Keir Starmer, and shows that he's set to find himself as Prime Minister with a convincing mandate"?

What would it take for him to actually say something like that?

[YL]

Whats the calculus on who should challenge in Bedfordshire?

It seems to flip back and forth between Labour and the Lib Dems - presumably Starmer would leave it to Davey, and focus on the other two, especially given what an uphill fight it would be?

If the Lib Dems want to fight it, I imagine Labour will leave them be. The only way Labour are winning that is if the Lib Dems take a chunk out of the Tory vote, in which case they’re almost certainly taking a chunk out of Labour’s vote as well. Better to focus resources and expectations management on Reading West/Selby and Ainsty.

The boundary changes are a factor there too, not because the new Mid Beds looks winnable for Labour but because a small bit of the old one goes into the new cross-county Hitchin constituency, which might be.  So Labour may want to put some effort in in that bit.

Meanwhile Reading West is in some ways the opposite situation to Selby & Ainsty: the current seat should be an easy gain in a by-election but the boundary changes take Labour's best bits out and replace them with some very rich and usually Tory (though some of it voted Lib Dem or Green earlier this month) Berkshire countryside (and rename it "Mid Berkshire", not that it's in the middle of the county or anything) which makes it a real long shot.  So if Labour win a by-election there the MP may not be an MP for very long.

[YL]

The (presumed) new Labour MP for Reading West may decide to seek selection in the new Reading seat - I’m fairly certain Matt Rodda hasn’t been reselected via trigger given that the constituency is changing so much.

Labour have been doing reselections on the old boundaries, and it seems that he has been reselected for the existing Reading East.  Over two thirds of the new Reading comes from there, so I imagine he'll get that by default.

There's also the new Earley & Woodley, which should be a Labour target and for which they haven't selected a candidate yet.  But that only contains one ward from the existing Reading West.

[YL]

Central Bedfordshire council (which doesn't cover all of the constituency) had a weird result last month where the Tories lost a lot of seats, but most of them were to Independents.

It's not immediately clear what to make of that, but it might suggest that the Lib Dem organisation is surprisingly poor given that the seat has been on by-election watch for nearly a year.

[YL]

The SNP have selected Katy Loudon, councillor for Cambuslang East on South Lanarkshire council (in the constituency) as their candidate for Rutherglen & Hamilton West.

[YL]

Not sure what it achieves; makes it a huge target for the Lib Dems, he might lose and even then the privileges committee could just do another report or apply this one again.

Can they do that if he's been re-elected since the report?

I think that if Dorries's resignation really was to set him up to come straight back in Mid Beds it's a huge risk and he could easily lose, especially as we now have two by-elections, one for Labour to focus on and one for the Lib Dems.

[YL]

Can someone smarter than me do an idiots guide re the political geography of each seat?

Selby and Ainsty - Rural North Yorkshire, to the east of Leeds. The Conservatives will have won everything in 2019, but in the forthcoming by-election Labour will do best in Selby itself along with a few other forming mining villages nearby and on the western border of the constituency. Against that, the Tories will still do well in the wealthy rural parts of the constituency, especially in the Ainsty area which is very North Yorkshire.

Mid Bedfordshire - Rural Bedfordshire, in-between Bedford and Luton. Hard to say really, the Lib Dems are competitive in the wards near Bedford, but it’s otherwise really quite a homogenous constituency consisting of mostly well off villages and the Tories will have been far ahead at the last general election everywhere.

Uxbridge and South Ruislip - Outer west London. Labour are strongest in Yiewsley and Uxbridge itself (more working class and a modest number of students), Hillingdon is comfortably Conservative (but pretty representative so will probably be Labour at the by-election), while southern Ruislip is the most Conservative part (more middle class and noticeably whiter).

It may be very hard to get the student vote out given the timing in the summer vacation.  Even now will be too late to go around trying to get the students to get postal votes.

Mid Bedfordshire also contains a university, but it's the rather unusual Cranfield and its student population is not high; there are a couple of output areas, covering the campus, right on the border with Milton Keynes which are heavily student, but there's no overspill beyond that.

[YL]

Nigel Adams is now Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, so Selby & Ainsty and Uxbridge & South Ruislip are officially vacant.  For now, Nadine Dorries is officially still an MP.

Candidate announcements are beginning to trickle in.  Reclaim and Reform UK have announced a pact regarding Mid Beds and Uxbridge & SR, with Laurence Fox being the Reclaim candidate in the latter.

[YL]

Nigel Adams is now Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, so Selby & Ainsty and Uxbridge & South Ruislip are officially vacant.  For now, Nadine Dorries is officially still an MP.

Candidate announcements are beginning to trickle in.  Reclaim and Reform UK have announced a pact regarding Mid Beds and Uxbridge & SR, with Laurence Fox being the Reclaim candidate in the latter.

What a game changer.

Last time Fox was endorsed by Reform UK he managed a glorious sixth place and 1.9% of the vote, though unfortunately he wasn't beaten by Count Binface.

[YL]

The two confirmed by-elections (Uxbridge South and Ruislip, Selby and Ainsty) have been set for July 20th.

If Mid Bedfordshire is to be held on the same day the writ needs to be moved and thus Dorries needs to be out of the Commons by next Wednesday.

[YL]

I suppose they could then schedule the by-election for July 21 out of pure spite. Might help the Tories hold on since tactical voters might get confused by strong Labour performances in the former two.

Is there a law that byelections and general elections must be on a Thursday or is that just a convention that could be easily ignored?

A convention, but it's over 40 years since there's been a parliamentary by-election not on a Thursday.  (OTOH, it's two days since there was a local by-election not on a Thursday.)

[YL]

It should also ensure any by-election is held after Uxbridge and Selby, thus potentially prolonging any resultant pain for Johnson's successor.

lmao if Mid Beds is later could Johnson run in Uxbridge, lose, and then be put forward as the candidate for Mid Beds?

Sorry to be boring. But it sounds like candidates are being selected over the next couple of days - with several selection meetings this evening for both Labour and the Conservatives. Even in Mid Beds there’s already a shortlist (lacking Johnson), where the by-election isn’t official yet.

Indeed, they have now picked a candidate, Festus Akinbusoye, the incumbent Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire.  (Which I suppose means that if he wins there will be a by-election in turn for that post.)

Meanwhile Labour picked Alistair Strathern, a cabinet member on Waltham Forest council in London, for Mid Beds, and Keir Mather, who is a policy advisor to the CBI and used to work for Wes Streeting and who will become the Baby of the House if he wins, for Selby & Ainsty.

[YL]

David Warburton, the MP for Somerton & Frome who was suspended from the Conservatives over various allegations, is apparently resigning.  So it looks like we have another one!

The seat was Lib Dem from 1997 until 2015 and would fall to them on a 15% swing.

[YL]

Bet Ed Davey has an inhumanly wide grin on his face tonight. The set would have been a heavy lift for them in a general election, but it’s a fair sight easier to win than some of their recent by-election pick-ups.

And with a decent incumbent, it’s probably way more winnable in the general next year…

It's being split in two in the boundary review, but I think that's probably still true of the proposed Glastonbury & Somerton (which I imagine is the one of the two a Lib Dem by-election winner would stand in).

[YL]

Nigel Adams' tenure as Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead lasted just one week, and he has been replaced by David Warburton.

The writ has just been moved for the resulting Somerton & Froome by-election, and so it will presumably be on 20 July along with Selby & Ainsty and Uxbridge & South Ruislip.

[YL]

How much time is left for Dorries to make it four July 20th byelections? Not a lot, presumably.

It's 21 to 27 working days after the writ is moved.  So the last day to move the writ for 20 July would be this Wednesday, but even then Central Bedfordshire Council could decide to have it on the 27th instead.

BTW the last time there were three Westminster by-elections on the same day was 29 November 2012.  The time before that was only two weeks earlier.  The last time there were three Government defences on the same day depends on what exactly you count: 23 November 2000 counts if you think of Betty Boothroyd's seat as essentially Labour-held, but if you don't count that then I think you have to go all the way back to 4 November 1976, assuming you count John Stonehouse's seat as a Labour defence.  Labour held Newcastle Central but lost Walsall North and Workington.