UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[YL]

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.

I appreciate the phonetic spelling of "Frome" for all of the mispronunciations that are surely happening as people read the posts in this thread out loud.

Maybe I should have written it as Vroom, as per the traditional Zummerzet accent.

[YL]

The Lib Dem candidate in Somerton & Frome spoke to the Guardian.  It did not go well.

[YL]

17 candidates for Uxbridge & South Ruislip, including some "interesting" names

Kingsley Hamilton Anti Ulez (Independent) [1]
Blaise Maxime Pascal Baquiche (Lib Dem)
Danny Boy Beales (Lab) [2]
Cameron Swaran Bell (Independent) [3]
Count Binface (Count Binface Party)
Piers Corbyn (Let London Live) [4]
Laurence Fox (Reclaim)
Steve Gardner (SDP)
Ed Gemmell (Climate Party) [5]
Sarah Charmian Green (Green)
Richard John Howard Hewison (Rejoin EU)
Howling Laud Hope (OMRLP)
Rebecca Jane (UKIP)
77 Joseph (Independent) [6]
Enomfon Udoka Ntefon (Christian People's Alliance)
No Ulez Leo Phaure (Independent) [7]
Steve Tuckwell (Con)

[1] "Anti Ulez" is the "surname" here.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Low_Emission_Zone
[2] Yes, that really is the name on the list.
[3] Has stood in the past for the Conservatives in Hillingdon council elections
[4] Jeremy's out there brother, again.
[5] Councillor for Hazlemere ward in Buckinghamshire.  The party is roughly speaking "market green".
[6] Yes, that's what it says.  Stood in 2019 in Southend West, and in the 2008 Haltemprice & Howden by-election under his real name, Thomas Darwood.
[7] Is it better to put your single issue in your first name or your surname?

[YL]

A mere 8 for Somerton & Frome.

Lorna Irene Bromley Corke (Christian People's Alliance)
Martin John Dimery (Green)
Sarah Joanne Dyke (Lib Dem)
Bruce David Evans (Reform UK)
Neil William Guild (Lab)
Rosie Mitchell (Independent) [1]
Faye Marie Purbrick (Con)
Peter Kevin Richardson (UKIP)

[1] "Independent Socialist", according to her Twitter

[YL]

13 candidates for Selby & Ainsty

Andrew Philip Gray (no description) [1]
Claire Holmes (Con)
Mike Jordan (Yorkshire Party/no description) [2]
Dave Kent (Reform UK)
Keir Alexander Mather (Lab)
Nick Palmer (Independent) [3]
Guy Phoenix (Heritage)
Sir Archibald Stanton (OMRLP)
Matt Walker (Lib Dem)
Arnold Francis Ignatius Warneken (Green)
John William Waterston (SDP)
Luke John Wellock (Climate Party)
"Yorkshire Tyke" Cllr Tyler Callum Wilson-Kerr (Independent) [4]

[1] Has a website where he is described as "The AI-Powered Candidate"
[2] The party name was missed off the form, but the party logo will be on the ballot paper.
[3] I presume not the former Labour MP
[4] sic; parish councillor in Aberford (Leeds); formerly in the Yorkshire Party; got into trouble last September for writing a republican message in a tribute book for the Queen and again in February for saying that he hoped a Tube station in London collapsed...

[YL]

Have the Yorkshire Party clarified what happened in Selby?

As far as I can tell, no. They had a piece about their candidate published yesterday before the statement of persons nominated was published, but nothings been said about why he is now listed as an independent.

It could just be a blunder in the nomination process; I'm sure candidates have appeared as "No Description" before for that reason.  But I would note that he was elected as a Conservative in 2015, as a Yorkshire Party candidate in 2019 and as a Conservative again in 2022 and only left that party days before he was announced as Yorkshire Party candidate, which is a record I would think most parties would be wary of.

He is his own agent, which would be a little surprising for a genuine party candidate, though the same is true of the SDP and Heritage candidates.

Update: there is a tweet from Yorkshire Party member David Herdson saying that he should be Yorkshire Party, and "will be listed with the party logo on the ballot paper".  I think he should now be regarded as a Yorkshire Party candidate.

[YL]

Interesting poll, though I think a few pinches of salt are needed, not least given that we still don't know that there is actually going to be a by-election there.

I think the Tory change should be -36, but even that is truly dreadful for them.  Even with a split opposition vote they will be very lucky to hold the seat if they're below about 35%.  Labour can use it to draw bar charts, which I imagine was the point.  The Independent is very high, though it is worth noting that Independents did very well in the Central Bedfordshire council election in May.  Reform are also very high given their track record, but we will see whether that track record changes in Selby & Ainsty and Somerton & Frome; they're not standing in Uxbridge & South Ruislip, where they did a deal with Laurence Fox, but we can probably think of Reclaim as being proxy-Reform-but-slightly-nuttier.

In other by-election news, there are rumours that the report on Chris Pincher's behaviour is about to drop and will lead to a recall petition in Tamworth.  Tamworth is probably even harder for Labour or the Lib Dems to win than Selby & Ainsty or Mid Beds; I know Labour did well in Tamworth borough in May, but the constituency also contains some uber-Tory areas in Lichfield district.

[YL]

Most interesting thing about Tamworth may be what Eddie Hughes does, he’s been selected as the candidate for their in the next GE, but will he abandon his current seat to stand in a by-election? Thereby causing another by-election? Unprecedented situation as far as I know.

I can't imagine the Tories tolerating him resigning from Walsall North and causing another by-election there.  One option might be to find someone to stand in the by-election on the understanding that they're just a stand-in, but I think that might be risky.

[YL]

Most interesting thing about Tamworth may be what Eddie Hughes does, he’s been selected as the candidate for their in the next GE, but will he abandon his current seat to stand in a by-election? Thereby causing another by-election? Unprecedented situation as far as I know.

I can't imagine the Tories tolerating him resigning from Walsall North and causing another by-election there.  One option might be to find someone to stand in the by-election on the understanding that they're just a stand-in, but I think that might be risky.

That also seems like a bad idea, cos it means Labour can just campaign saying that the Tory candidate is a stand in/won’t actually be your MP. There’s no simple way out of this conundrum.

Yes, that's why I think it's risky.  But the other alternative is to screw Hughes over and give the by-election candidate the General Election nomination.

[YL]

Is it possible that all this will result in changes to laws involving the potential recall of MPs?

The laws on this probably ought to be reviewed at some point, but I doubt that recall will disappear altogether.

The Tories' Tamworth problem isn't really to do with the potential by-election being caused by recall, it's to do with the boundary changes and the fact that they've already selected a sitting MP for a different constituency for the new Tamworth.  Any by-election cause would give them a problem in that scenario.

[YL]

The Yorkshire Post has some details of a poll of Selby & Ainsty carried out by JL Partners for 38 Degrees.  The headline is that Labour are 12 points ahead, on 41% to the Tories' 29%.  As that only comes to 70% and I can't see the other candidates getting 30% between them, I suspect that that is not excluding (or re-allocating) undecideds.

Usual constituency poll pinch of salt needed, I suppose, and obviously we don't have the full data yet anyway.

[YL]

They ofc have issues but I seem to recall both Wakefield and Batley and Spen having ones that were broadly correct about the direction of travel.

Wakefield was polled twice, once by Survation and once by JL Partners.  The JL Partners poll did well on the Labour and Tory shares but over-estimated the Lib Dems and Greens and under-estimated other candidates (the Independent and the Yorkshire Party, mainly).  The Survation poll over-estimated Labour and, to a lesser extent, the Tories, and again under-estimated other candidates.

Batley & Spen was polled once, by Survation.  This was not close to the final result: it seriously over-estimated the Tories and did not pick up the scale of George Galloway's vote.  Whether it had a bad sample or whether things changed between the poll and the by-election is of course unknown.

Hartlepool was polled twice, both times by Survation.  The second poll was reasonably accurate, though somehow picked up a 6% vote for former Labour MP Thelma Walker as a Northern Independence Party aligned Independent, which is way more than what she actually got.  Wikipedia also records a Focaldata "poll" showing Labour ahead, but I think that was from an MRP, not an actual poll of Hartlepool.

The other by-elections this Parliament haven't had public polls.

[YL]

I was wrong about undecideds; they really do have others on 30%.

Mather (Lab) 41%
Holmes (Con) 29%
Kent (Reform UK) 8%
Walker (Lib Dem) 6%
Warneken (Green) 6%
Jordan (Yorkshire Party) 4%
Wilson-Kerr (Ind) 2%
Gray (Ind), Phoenix (Heritage), Stanton (OMRLP), Waterston (SDP) each 1%
Palmer (Ind), Wellock (Climate) each 0%

[YL]

There's also been a questionable poll, seemingly carried out by Labour, of Mid Bedfordshire.

Lab - 28%
Con - 24%
Ind (Dorries?) - 19%
LDs - 15%

This was mentioned on the previous page, and the Ind is Gareth Mackey, a prominent (at least in Flitwick) Central Bedfordshire councillor.  The poll was carried out by Opinium for the Labour Party, and so should be regarded as a Labour internal.

[YL]

There's also a JL Partners poll of Uxbridge & South Ruislip, with Labour 8% ahead (Lab 41, Con 33).

Full figures:

Beales (Lab) 41%
Tuckwell (Con) 33%
Baquiche (Lib Dem) 6%
Fox (Reclaim) 5%
Green (Green) 4%
Hamilton "Anti Ulez" (Ind) 4%
Bell (Ind), Binface (Binface), Corbyn (Let London Live), Hewison (Rejoin), Hope (OMRLP), Jane (UKIP) each 1%
Gardner (SDP), Gemmell (Climate), Joseph (Ind), Ntefon (CPA), Phaure (Ind) each 0%

[YL]

So that I'm following along correctly, if the Tories lose all three seats, it'll be Labour winning U&SR and S&A, while the Lib Dems take S&F?

Yes.

[YL]

At this rate the only saving grace will be a few seats in the Black Country and the Tees Valley and even those wouldn’t be nailed on.

Nope. I've done some number crunching for the local results transposed to the new constituencies in the Black Country. And. Er. Well.

I guess it is debatable whether it counts as Black Country (not being from the area, I tend to use the four borough definition of that term, but I know local opinions vary) but what about Aldridge-Brownhills?

I think South Holland & the Deepings is the ultimate in safe Tory seats right now.

[YL]

It's always worth bearing in mind that there may be a bit of expectation management going on in these sort of quotes, but a Guardian article gives Tory sources' views on each by-election a paragraph each.  Somerton & Frome is described as a "write-off", and Selby & Ainsty "tough", but they're a bit happier about Uxbridge & South Ruislip, although you get the impression that they don't actually expect to hold it.  That view of the latter two is reasonably consistent with the polls there, I suppose.

[YL]

It's always worth bearing in mind that there may be a bit of expectation management going on in these sort of quotes, but a Guardian article gives Tory sources' views on each by-election a paragraph each.  Somerton & Frome is described as a "write-off", and Selby & Ainsty "tough", but they're a bit happier about Uxbridge & South Ruislip, although you get the impression that they don't actually expect to hold it.  That view of the latter two is reasonably consistent with the polls there, I suppose.

What polls have there actually been other than the two (?) that have been posted here?  One of which was that highly sketchy Lord Ashcroft one in Uxbridge & SR.

I just meant the two JL Partners ones (one in each of S & A and U & SR); I think the Ashcroft one was junk (and assumed Johnson as candidate, anyway).

As for the alleged Tory internal in Mid Beds, it's hard to say much without knowing more about what their categories are.  E.g. were there people who were "probably" going to vote for them?

[YL]

If there’s a decently smaller swing in Uxbridge I can already see a potential Tory tabloids’ spin that it’s proof of Boris’s enduring popularity. Seems an appropriate level of tripe that qualifies for by-election “analysis”.

That makes no sense at all. If Boris were still so personally popular then you would expect Tory support in Uxbridge to collapse even more with him no longer on the ballot and replaced by a generic Tory candidate. It’s not as if Boris is out campaigning in the by election and asking people to vote Tory to show their support for him. If anything a Tory vote now in Uxbridge is a vote for Sunak..

He was talking about Tory tabloids’ spin, not things which make sense.

[YL]

Any predictions with less than a week?

If Selby & Ainsty isn't a Labour gain then they've messed up their expectation management quite badly.  Somerton & Frome is similar, but for the Lib Dems.

I think Labour will win Uxbridge & South Ruislip as well, but the vibes on that one aren't quite as clear cut.  It does look like it is going to swing substantially less than Selby & Ainsty.

[YL]

What is the last time a constituency with Selby & Ainsty's borders would have gone Labour? 1997?

It's not obvious.  It was Tory in 2005 by about 4.3 percentage points according to the "official" notional results, and if you extrapolate the swings in the then Selby back you get it being Tory by a whisker in 2001 and Labour by a slightly larger whisker in 1997.  But I suspect that those 2005 notionals over-estimated the Lib Dems and under-estimated Labour in the part of the old Selby which went into York Outer, and hence did the reverse in the bit which stayed with Selby.  (Part of the reason I suspect that is that the 2010 vote share changes in Selby & Ainsty become less extreme if you assume that.)  If that's right, then it would tend to suggest that S & A was actually carried by the Tories in 1997.

If not 1997, then possibly 1945, when Barkston Ash was very close, but I haven't attempted to analyse the difference between the two constituencies.  Otherwise the answer may be "never".

[YL]

Labour List has an article about Mid Bedfordshire

Snippet:

Another member of my canvassing team talks to a woman who airs a wide variety of complaints about contemporary Britain’s lack of “racial purity”, ultimately concluding that it would have been better if Germany had won the Second World War. She was mulling over whether Labour or the Liberal Democrats were the smarter choice for her anti-Tory tactical vote.

According to polling in the Telegraph, the smartest home for the anti-Tory tactical vote, Nazi or otherwise, is with Labour’s Alistair Strathern.

LOL

[YL]

With two days to go the feelings I'm getting are

Somerton & Frome: very easy Lib Dem gain
Selby & Ainsty: interestingly comfortable Labour gain
Uxbridge & South Ruislip: probably Labour gain, but less impressive than the other two

Could be way out of course.

[YL]

Teale's preview of the 3 seats.

Very fun read

Wait...what?

"Eight other candidates have been nominated. Top of the ballot paper is Andrew Gray, an independent candidate from Harrogate who claims to be the AI-powered candidate. I suppose it had to happen at some point. "

Here's his website: https://www.andrew-gray.org/