UK By-elections thread, 2021-
🦀🎂🦀🎂:
Thought a new thread would be worth it, given the last by-election we had was in 2019 (Brecon and Radnorshire, how time flies). This time Mike Hill (Lab) has stepped down in Hartlepool for sexual harassment. Hartlepool is a big piece of the supposed Red Wall, that probably only didn't fall in 2019 due the fact the Brexit Party leader was standing, recieving 25% of the vote. Hartlepool in general has been given to electing novelty candidates: their first elected mayor was one of those guys who dressed like a gorilla or whatever and they apparently came to actually like longtime MP Peter Mandelson.
Filuwaúrdjan:
Quote from: Filuwaúrdjan on March 16, 2021, 08:54:00 AM
The main problem for Labour would be the reason for the vacancy: Hill has been accused of sexual harassment and faces an Employment Tribunal relating to the allegations later this year. Given that the accusations were known at the time of the last election he really should not have been allowed to stand again.
Anyway, this is a very odd town with very odd and not always entirely predictable politics. Labour have the biggest base and are the best organised party locally and will benefit from the fact that opposition voters are more likely to turn out in by-elections. Assumptions that you can just add up the Conservative and Brexit Party votes from the last GE and project onto a by-election are... silly... but I presume the Conservatives will make an effort (or at least run a noisy campaign to the effect) and hope that the oddities of the constituency break their way. Quite what to expect from the artists formerly known as UKIP/the Brexit Party I'm not entirely sure, but, again, presumably some effort just because of past performances and local government strength.* Which is the other issue: there might (although this isn't certain) be various independent runs from various egotistical local players that might be worth a few thousand votes, or not.
*What isn't good for them is that their issues are either dead (Brexit) or don't poll particularly well (lockdown scepticism), which doesn't seem like good news from a motivating-your-electorate perspective. But we shall see.
Benjamin Frank:
Quote from: c r a b c a k e on March 16, 2021, 09:21:22 AM
Thought a new thread would be worth it, given the last by-election we had was in 2019 (Brecon and Radnorshire, how time flies). This time Mike Hill (Lab) has stepped down in Hartlepool for sexual harassment. Hartlepool is a big piece of the supposed Red Wall, that probably only didn't fall in 2019 due the fact the Brexit Party leader was standing, recieving 25% of the vote. Hartlepool in general has been given to electing novelty candidates: their first elected mayor was one of those guys who dressed like a gorilla or whatever and they apparently came to actually like longtime MP Peter Mandelson.
Morrissey should run.
Starmerite2024:
Hartlepool is an absolute tossup as to who will win
rc18:
Quote from: Starmerite2024 on March 17, 2021, 06:42:23 AM
Hartlepool is an absolute tossup as to who will win
Talk about expectations management.
This seat was easily won by Corbyn even in 2019, and when allegations against the Labour candidate were already known IIRC. BXP voters, who couldn't even bring themselves to vote Tory with that party running on a "Get Brexit Done" ticket, are very unlikely to vote Tory now; in this part of the world they are by and large ex-Labour. Add to that government by-election gains being rarer than hen's teeth.
This seat by all rights should be a Labour hold, even if they have troubles at local level. I doubt it would be fatal to Starmer's leadership, but failure to hold Hartlepool when a more toxic leader managed it would seriously undermine his position. You can imagine the crowing from the nuttiest parts of Labour.
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