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

[Gary J]

Everyone be prepared to laugh at this by-election for the HoL with an electorate of ... Three people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36084455

See how fast democracy has changed the House of Lords, just as the Earl of Oxford and Asquith's ancestor promised. The preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 included these stirring words.

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[Gary J]

I thought that once a Hereditary Lord died, then the election would be about selecting a formerly kicked out family of Lords and inviting one of them back into the House? It seems terribly complicated.

More or less. The complication comes because the electorate for House of Lords by-elections is not all the hereditary peers who would have had seats but for the House of Lords Act 1999, but just those hereditary peers currently serving as such in the House of Lords. Some of the hereditary peers represent party groups, so only the other serving peers from that group get to vote. There are just not that many Labour or Liberal Democrat  hereditary peers so you get two or three voters filling vacancies.

The Conservative vacancies or those for which all the hereditary peers in the House vote, have somewhat more substantial electorates.

[Gary J]

Everyone be prepared to laugh at this by-election for the HoL with an electorate of ... Three people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36084455

See how fast democracy has changed the House of Lords, just as the Earl of Oxford and Asquith's ancestor promised. The preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 included these stirring words.

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I thought the idea of the Blair govt's HoL reforms was to retain only the hereditary peers who were actually worth the job and get rid of the rest, and then let those remaining 92 die off until there were no hereditaries left?

The Blair government's original idea was to have no hereditary peers in the reformed House of Lords. The "system" which now exists was the product of negotiations between the leader of the Conservative peers (Viscount Cranborne, now the Marquess of Salisbury) and the government. Salisbury was doing a deal without the knowledge of the Leader of the Opposition, which led to some amusing scenes in the House of Commons and to Salisbury being dismissed from his post. The deal however stuck.

Extract from Hansard, 2 December 1998.

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[Gary J]

[quote authr=rob in cal link=topic=221651.msg5427389#msg5427389 date=1481321425]
  Not sure where to post this question, but in the various by-elections being held are all of the new Conservative candidates in favor of Brexit, and is the default assumption now that that's to be expected?
[/quote]

Yes, pretty much.

The Tories are still divided between big business friendly soft Brexiteers and nationalist hard Brexiteers, but almost none of the present generation of Conservatives is going to argue against Brexit means Brexit.

I would draw an analogy with the way that free traders were squeezed out of Conservative and Unionist ranks in the early 20th century. By the time of the First World War, the internal battle between free trade and protectionism was clearly won by advocates of the latter policy. The argument had shifted to one about the extent that free trade in food was still compatible with a generally protectionist policy.

[Gary J]

As predicted, SF easily won the West Tyrone by-election on 3rd May 2018.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-43983518

SF 16,346
DUP 8,390
SDLP 6,254
UUP 2,909
APNI 1,130

Majority 7,956
Turnout 55%