UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[It’s so Joever]

Trends are aren’t real

[MillennialModerate]

Caught up on the last 2 months of the thread tonight, just wanted to point out:

Can someone give a Lean Likely Tossup type analysis of the By elections and when will they be?

After some quick research it seems like the 3 are

Safe CONSERVATIVE (likely Swing to LAB)
Safe CONSERVATIVE (likely Swing to LAB)
Lean CONSERVATIVE (SAFE Swing to LAB)

Can we please just ban him?

Clever.

Majorities of 20k and 19k are normally flipped, right?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Caught up on the last 2 months of the thread tonight, just wanted to point out:

Can someone give a Lean Likely Tossup type analysis of the By elections and when will they be?

After some quick research it seems like the 3 are

Safe CONSERVATIVE (likely Swing to LAB)
Safe CONSERVATIVE (likely Swing to LAB)
Lean CONSERVATIVE (SAFE Swing to LAB)

Can we please just ban him?

Clever.

Majorities of 20k and 19k are normally flipped, right?

In by-elections, early in the fourteenth year of a widely and increasingly loathed government? Yes, they are.

[Harlow]

Keir Mather, the 25 year-old Labour Party candidate in Selby and Ainsty, just came back into the room smiling after being told the result.

[YL]

Gray (no description) 99
Holmes (Con) 12295
Jordan (Yorkshire Party) 1503
Kent (Reform UK) 1332
Mather (Lab) 16456
Palmer (Independent) 342
Phoenix (Heritage) 162
Stanton (OMRLP) 172
Walker (Lib Dem) 1188
Warneken (Green) 1838
Waterston (SDP) 314
Wellock (Climate Party) 39
Wilson-Kerr (Independent) 67

Lab majority 4161

[Oryxslayer]

Selby & Ainsty Declaration:

Conservative: 12,295
Green: 1,838
Labour: 16,456
Lib-Dem: 1,188
Yorkshire Party (Kinda): 1,503
Reform: 1,332
Heritage Party: 162
Raving Loony: 172
SDP: 314
Climate Party: 39
Ind Gray (AI): 99
Ind Kerr: 67
Ind Palmer: 342

35,856 total votes

And reminder this seat is getting measurably better for Labour in 2024, thanks to the redraw dropping rural conservative and new suburban developments in Ainsty and gaining some wards from Southwestern (Leeds) Yorkshire.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A Keir win benefiting Keir.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A majority of 10% and a swing of 23.7. Yes, that's... striking.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'd have more to say if I were less stressed about unrelated things, but: NUT. We're so back.

[YL]

Lab 46.0% (+21.4)
Con 34.3% (-26.0)
Green 5.1% (+1.9)
Yorks 4.2% (+0.8)
Reform UK 3.7%
Lib Dem 3.3% (-5.3)
Palmer 1.0%
SDP 0.9%
Loony 0.5%
Heritage 0.5%
Gray 0.3%
Wilson-Kerr 0.2%
Climate 0.1%

23.7% swing

[TheTide]

Cute and gay (I think?).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That Yorkshire Party fellow does it again.

[YL]

Second biggest Con to Lab swing in a by-election since 1945.

I do wonder if there's some reason why that seat was ripe for such a big swing.

[Benjamin Frank]

Combined by-election results
Conservative 36,439
Labour 30,935
Liberal Democrat 22,901

[MillennialModerate]

any guesses on the spin from the press?

The swing against the tories?

or the tories hanging on in Uxbridge?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Second biggest Con to Lab swing in a by-election since 1945.

I do wonder if there's some reason why that seat was ripe for such a big swing.

I suppose that the government has lost the most ground - proportionally - to Labour in small postindustrial towns (including ones that are not deprived) and that there's widespread discontent and trouble in the countryside, and, well...

[Benjamin Frank]

any guesses on the spin from the press?

The swing against the tories?

or the tories hanging on in Uxbridge?

Press is commenting on tactical voting.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One of the big parties overturning a majority of 20,000 is going to be the main story, no matter the other results, no matter if attempts are made to insist otherwise. So it was when the Conservatives gained Ashfield in 1977, even as fell short in Grimsby.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

any guesses on the spin from the press?

The swing against the tories?

or the tories hanging on in Uxbridge?

Even the Sun correspondent on BBC was admitting it was a good night for Labour. I think the Uxbridge result will be played as less a national indication but more of a local issue for Sadiq Khan and the London mayoral election next year.

[Duke of York]

Cute and gay (I think?).

He definitely is cute. I haven’t found any mention of him being gay though.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I don't understand how in the UK the liberal democrats can pull of astounding flips in by-elections then totaly choke and loose in general elections. Why can't they translate this success to something meaningful ?. Why can't they replicate their by-election machine in general elections ?

[Benjamin Frank]

I don't understand how in the UK the liberal democrats can pull of astounding flips in by-elections then totaly choke and loose in general elections. Why can't they translate this success to something meaningful ?. Why can't they replicate their by-election machine in general elections ?

Well, first they don't win most by-elections. They are clearly benefiting as well from tactical voting. As you probably know they had a lot more seats from 1997-2015 (or in the 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010 general elections.)  They need a situation of a lot of voters from the governing party being unwilling to vote for the government but not willing to vote for the main opposition, although from 1997 to the 2010 election, I think they benefited from a concentration of votes in, I believe, Southern England with a lot of middle class and upper middle class suburban voters. Since then, a lot of those voters seem to have switched to Labour, so the Liberal Democrats have had to rebuild a natural voter constituency.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't understand how in the UK the liberal democrats can pull of astounding flips in by-elections then totaly choke and loose in general elections. Why can't they translate this success to something meaningful ?. Why can't they replicate their by-election machine in general elections ?

Because deep down the modern Lib-Dems are a localist party. In most areas they serve as an opposition to Conservatives when Labour can't win in said council, and the same in Safe Labour turf. Only a handful of areas are actually places where the voters are Lib-Dems first rather than anti-governing party.

This position in local politics means each local Lib-Dem branch must take local issues seriously. They thrive when you can send the candidate themselves around to knock on every door and make the voters feel recognized and their issues heard. And these issues differ from council to council, seat to seat, ward to ward, and there is only minimal pressure from national command to conform to any set platform. This is easily translatable to a by-election environment.

This is obviously different during a national campaign. The Lib-Dems have less resources than the Conservatives or Labour and start from a position where voters don't see them as a realistic option for PM (except maybe briefly during the 2010 campaign). They also put out a party platform on issues which almost always diverge from various local camps and the voters they won, a feature of the autonomous party organization rather than bug. The media will focus on the big national topics and general campaign trends, leaving no room for everyone to send a reporter to a single shire town like in a by-election. So the base is that much smaller. The Lib-Dems run focused campaigns on specific seats in GEs not because they are forced to, but because it reaps better rewards than a national tour.

That all said, a lot of the Lib-Dems truly 'party loyal' national seats tend to be Tory-LD rather than Lab-LD. A dominant Conservative party that got their people in Lib-Dem areas thanks to the coalition collapse in 2015 has kept the Lib-Dem seat count low. However, the situation right now is such that the Lib-Dems probably get at least 20 gains mostly off low-hanging fruit like Cheltenham or Winchester, even if the environment gets a bit better for Conservatives. This probably includes holds in whichever successor seats the Somerton and Tiverton incumbents decide to run in, based on what we have seen in the Eastern local elections and here tonight. But it may not include Chesham & Amersham (unless the incumbent jumps to Hertfordshire) cause the Lib-Dems have limited history in that region, and NIMBY issues are often forgotten in a national election. Which also perhaps applies to the Uxbridge result tonight: if Labour maintain their polling lead then they likely still gain it off the national issues which have no discussion space for neighborhood NIMBYism.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Combined by-election results
Conservative 36,439
Labour 30,935
Liberal Democrat 22,901

For reference, 2019 totals for the big three parties in these three seats:

Conservative: 95,576
Labour: 40,353
Liberal Democrat: 24,866

[Blair]

On reflection the reports from Uxbridge of doors getting slammed in faces should have suggested things weren’t exactly great.

In a weird way it’s a set of results that gives each party something to be happy with.