UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Atlas Force]

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1682197530153558019

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Some thoughts this morning:

My biggest concern is that the Uxbridge & South Ruislip result will embolden the increasingly noticeable anti-environmental tendency in the Tories, and furthermore that it'll make Labour (and even the Lib Dems to some extent) warier of doing anything which takes the car lobby on.

The issue with ULEZ is that most local governments are running on shoestring budgets. I personally foresee many problems with this type of policy,  and know there are many better solutions for environmental urban transformation policy, most using the carrot rather than the stick. However,  for there to be expansions of public transport resources for example,  there needs to be a lot of money which there supposedly isn't. It's hopefully something Starmer recognizes and changes, especially with Nandy on board.

But until that point, local government has to realize that doing a transformational policy without providing any way to facilitateit, aka telling the voters to figure it out with the situation as is, is always going to make people very angry. Projects similar to ULEZ caused a Tory councilor to be elected in a by-election in Cambridge city of all places, and saw the Greens get entirely wiped out in Yorks 2023 elections. If you can't use the carrot,  maybe you shouldn't use so obvious of a stick.

The York Greens were wiped for an even stupider reason: they abolished disabled parking on some kind of bizarre police review for anti terrorism reasons.

[Conservatopia]

Uxbridge is actually a helpful outlier because the Tories will now obsess over a niche issue which never usually works well for them.

When unusual by-election results occur, it's usually a warning about a specific policy causing a lot of political pain.

George Galloway was a warning that Labour had specific trouble with foreign policy.

Conservatives lost in Richmond Park in 2016, and I saw it as a warning that Theresa May was going to have trouble with Brexit.

Labour losing Uxbridge is in my mind a similar warning that Labour will have trouble with green policies and would need to revise them.

At the very least Khan will have to ditch the ULEZ plans, because it clearly cost Labour the seat.

I think you're reading too much into a by election result. Yes ULEZ cost Labour a seat when the election was fought on ULEZ but the general election won't be fought on ULEZ.

A lot of by election gains are then lost at the following election because the niche circumstances that lead to the by election result no longer exist.

Also, turnout matters. 15-25pp extra turnout will make a huge difference in the general election.

It's completely plausible that Labour comfortably win Uxbridge next year even if the polls narrow.

So both winners in these elections are guaranteed to lose the next general election?

No. Uxbridge is the result most likely to change as it is the one which defied the polls due to local issues. The other two broadly made sense against national trends.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1682197530153558019

A better comparison: Labour winning Selby and Ainsty but losing Uxbridge and South Ruislip is the equivalent of the Bush-era Democrats winning a special election in a congressional district covering NE Indiana or NW Iowa, while losing a special election in a congressional district covering Staten Island. Would this actually be surprising? No, not at all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, that works as an analogue. Interesting comment on how much harder it is to 'translate' British and American voting habits now.

[Blair]

Worth noting ofc that while the Mayor/TFL have had funding issues they’re different to local councils mucking around with traffic closures- the mayor has a very specific set of powers around transport and air pollution, and the office has successfully introduced the congestion charge and inner London ULEZ.

The issue is really the lack of funding for the scrappage scheme but even those who are eligible have faced issues…

I think I mentioned it much earlier in this thread but this will not bode well for the big decisions national governments need to make about roads, cars and taxation- electric vehicles are largely exempt from our various revenue/taxes but everyone wants to pretend that there isn’t a looming black hole.

[JimJamUK]

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1682197530153558019

Please can ElectionTwitter please stop pretending they understand British politics?

[Хahar 🤔]

I think that this showing indicates the problems that Starmer will have in the coming hung parliament thanks to his weak metropolitan support. Will the SNP be willing to accommodate the sort of policy measures that it would take for Labour to win those voters back?

[MABA 2020]

These results suggest Labour will win a majority if nothing changes, which has been clear for a while.

A hung parliament is not likely

[afleitch]

Yes, that works as an analogue. Interesting comment on how much harder it is to 'translate' British and American voting habits now.

Doesn't stop the Tories from trying to.

[Oryxslayer]

Uxbridge is actually a helpful outlier because the Tories will now obsess over a niche issue which never usually works well for them.

When unusual by-election results occur, it's usually a warning about a specific policy causing a lot of political pain.

George Galloway was a warning that Labour had specific trouble with foreign policy.

Conservatives lost in Richmond Park in 2016, and I saw it as a warning that Theresa May was going to have trouble with Brexit.

Labour losing Uxbridge is in my mind a similar warning that Labour will have trouble with green policies and would need to revise them.

At the very least Khan will have to ditch the ULEZ plans, because it clearly cost Labour the seat.

I think you're reading too much into a by election result. Yes ULEZ cost Labour a seat when the election was fought on ULEZ but the general election won't be fought on ULEZ.

A lot of by election gains are then lost at the following election because the niche circumstances that lead to the by election result no longer exist.

Also, turnout matters. 15-25pp extra turnout will make a huge difference in the general election.

It's completely plausible that Labour comfortably win Uxbridge next year even if the polls narrow.

So both winners in these elections are guaranteed to lose the next general election?

Some likely will, some seemingly won't if things remain as they are:

- It's been so long since the Hartlepool by-election that the conditions which flipped the seat Blue no longer exist. Labour essentially retook the council majority despite numerous handicaps in the locals. Even if polls narrow the seat is still likely to flip back red.

- The same Tory fundamentals are true for the Lib-Dems in Chesham and Amersham except the Lib-Dems are ascendant rather than falling. However, C&A doesn't exactly have a strong Lib-Dem local tradition, and the seat as it exists is seeing some changes through the remap. Not hard to imagine the Tories taking this one back. Also not hard to see Sarah Green run to somewhere where she could have better odds, be that neighboring Aylesbury; potential Lib-Dem targets in Oxfordshire, Surry, or Hertfordshire; or even all the way back to Brecon & Radnor in her native Wales.

- North Shropshire would be even harder to hold for the Lib-Dems versus a GE Conservative campaign, though its harder to see where Shropeshire local Helen Morgan would run to.

- The Lib-Dems probably couldn't hold Tiverton and Honiton in a GE environment, but they don't have to - the seat is split in two by the boundary redraw. The most Lib-Dem parts of the seat (Tiverton and her rural enviorns), both locally in in historical GE's, gets paired with rural Somerset where the Lib-Dems are surging. And Foord is from Somerset, so now he's a local to the new seat. So this is seemingly a hold.

- Wakefield is the type of seat Labour would be winning even if the polls are tied. Easy hold.

- Somerton and Frome is another seat getting split in two. But Sarah Dyke, is a local, just won a huge majority, and the Lib-Dems arn't exactly without past voters in Somerset. There are even seats more Lib-Dem locally in the region if she wants better odds of reelection. Probable hold.

- And Selby and Ainsty is a probably Labour hold if polls remain in their favor. The boundary changes notably favor them here, trading the most Tory parts to a new suburban seat, in exchange for some Leeds-facing wards Labour won in 2023. So even if polls narrow a bit, the incumbent still could hold.


And not all of the by-election holds this cycle will remain holds. Southend is one of the southern towns and cities where Labour is surging, the SNP are in turmoil and Airdrie and Shotts does not have a strong foundation when its Labour on the offense, and obviously the Tories ran a extremely local campaign in Uxbridge (similar to the standard Lib-Dem tactics) which doesn't exactly work in a national GE.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Morgan has been an active and comparatively high profile local MP and will put up a fight. That alone is not good for the Tories, as they have always been able to rely on sending activists out from North Shropshire (which historically had one of the largest Conservative Associations in the country) to more competitive territory nearby, and as it's a big constituency there's a lot of that about: those who lived around Oswestry often headed off to the Wrexham area and Mid Wales, those who lived in the centre of the constituency typically headed south to Shrewsbury and to Telford, while those around Market Drayton would often campaign in North Staffordshire.

[Coldstream]

Personally I think in the current environment even North Shropshire would be a hold for the Lib Dems. As people like Tim Farron, Norman Lamb proved 2015-19 the Lib Dems can overcome the Conservative bent of a seat with a good local profile even with strong Pro-Tory headwinds - and those don’t exist now. Christchurch ‘97 is the obvious counter to this, but it was a long time ago with an arguably more popular Tory party.

[YL]

Personally I think in the current environment even North Shropshire would be a hold for the Lib Dems. As people like Tim Farron, Norman Lamb proved 2015-19 the Lib Dems can overcome the Conservative bent of a seat with a good local profile even with strong Pro-Tory headwinds - and those don’t exist now. Christchurch ‘97 is the obvious counter to this, but it was a long time ago with an arguably more popular Tory party.

I think it was more to do with it being Christchurch.

Without the boundary changes, I think the Lib Dems would have a decent chance in all four.  But all four undergo changes and two of them are carved in two.  Major boundary changes are rarely helpful for the Lib Dems as they are dependent on persistent hard work and getting people to get to know their MPs.

In North Shropshire the changes do them no harm, as they merely remove a couple of wards, and there’s no reason to think those wards are better for them than the constituency as a whole; indeed I suspect the reverse.  Chesham & Amersham gains Gerrards Cross (a very rich commuter town) and Hazlemere (a generally Tory suburb of High Wycombe, though one of its councillors is the Climate Party candidate from Uxbridge) and loses Great Missenden and some rural territory west of Chesham; as I said in the boundaries thread I’m really not sure what effect this has, and the trends in the SE mean that obvious assumptions about places like Gerrards Cross being very Tory may not be as valid as they once were, which takes some getting used to.

[Coldstream]

Personally I think in the current environment even North Shropshire would be a hold for the Lib Dems. As people like Tim Farron, Norman Lamb proved 2015-19 the Lib Dems can overcome the Conservative bent of a seat with a good local profile even with strong Pro-Tory headwinds - and those don’t exist now. Christchurch ‘97 is the obvious counter to this, but it was a long time ago with an arguably more popular Tory party.

I think it was more to do with it being Christchurch.

Without the boundary changes, I think the Lib Dems would have a decent chance in all four.  But all four undergo changes and two of them are carved in two.  Major boundary changes are rarely helpful for the Lib Dems as they are dependent on persistent hard work and getting people to get to know their MPs.

In North Shropshire the changes do them no harm, as they merely remove a couple of wards, and there’s no reason to think those wards are better for them than the constituency as a whole; indeed I suspect the reverse.  Chesham & Amersham gains Gerrards Cross (a very rich commuter town) and Hazlemere (a generally Tory suburb of High Wycombe, though one of its councillors is the Climate Party candidate from Uxbridge) and loses Great Missenden and some rural territory west of Chesham; as I said in the boundaries thread I’m really not sure what effect this has, and the trends in the SE mean that obvious assumptions about places like Gerrards Cross being very Tory may not be as valid as they once were, which takes some getting used to.

Christchurch is Christchurch, but they still won it with 60% of the vote - a reverse of what the Tories got in 1992. So there’s precedent for the Lib Dem’s to get massive swings in a by-election and lose it anyway. Even if that’s not what I think will happen this time.

[MaxQue]

Personally I think in the current environment even North Shropshire would be a hold for the Lib Dems. As people like Tim Farron, Norman Lamb proved 2015-19 the Lib Dems can overcome the Conservative bent of a seat with a good local profile even with strong Pro-Tory headwinds - and those don’t exist now. Christchurch ‘97 is the obvious counter to this, but it was a long time ago with an arguably more popular Tory party.

I think it was more to do with it being Christchurch.

Without the boundary changes, I think the Lib Dems would have a decent chance in all four.  But all four undergo changes and two of them are carved in two.  Major boundary changes are rarely helpful for the Lib Dems as they are dependent on persistent hard work and getting people to get to know their MPs.

In North Shropshire the changes do them no harm, as they merely remove a couple of wards, and there’s no reason to think those wards are better for them than the constituency as a whole; indeed I suspect the reverse.  Chesham & Amersham gains Gerrards Cross (a very rich commuter town) and Hazlemere (a generally Tory suburb of High Wycombe, though one of its councillors is the Climate Party candidate from Uxbridge) and loses Great Missenden and some rural territory west of Chesham; as I said in the boundaries thread I’m really not sure what effect this has, and the trends in the SE mean that obvious assumptions about places like Gerrards Cross being very Tory may not be as valid as they once were, which takes some getting used to.

Christchurch is Christchurch, but they still won it with 60% of the vote - a reverse of what the Tories got in 1992. So there’s precedent for the Lib Dem’s to get massive swings in a by-election and lose it anyway. Even if that’s not what I think will happen this time.

Ironically, Christchurch is one of the major reasons why Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole isn't Conservative-run.

[oldtimer]

Worth noting ofc that while the Mayor/TFL have had funding issues they’re different to local councils mucking around with traffic closures- the mayor has a very specific set of powers around transport and air pollution, and the office has successfully introduced the congestion charge and inner London ULEZ.

The issue is really the lack of funding for the scrappage scheme but even those who are eligible have faced issues…

I think I mentioned it much earlier in this thread but this will not bode well for the big decisions national governments need to make about roads, cars and taxation- electric vehicles are largely exempt from our various revenue/taxes but everyone wants to pretend that there isn’t a looming black hole.

Boris has left a big timebomb for the next government, his 2030 car ban.

As usual Boris set an unrealistic overoptimistic target on a whim, that will cause trouble when time comes.

But it is arriving just in time to potencially screw the incoming Labour government, just like the 2030 nitrogen target crippled the Dutch government.

[oldtimer]

Personally I think in the current environment even North Shropshire would be a hold for the Lib Dems. As people like Tim Farron, Norman Lamb proved 2015-19 the Lib Dems can overcome the Conservative bent of a seat with a good local profile even with strong Pro-Tory headwinds - and those don’t exist now. Christchurch ‘97 is the obvious counter to this, but it was a long time ago with an arguably more popular Tory party.

In the current environment even Sunak could lose his own seat.

My guess is that as long as the LD ignore or downplay the Brexit issue, a lot of their traditional liberal rural areas would return to them.

[CumbrianLefty]

I think that this showing indicates the problems that Starmer will have in the coming hung parliament thanks to his weak metropolitan support. Will the SNP be willing to accommodate the sort of policy measures that it would take for Labour to win those voters back?

Sorry, but what??

[Blair]

Someone made the point on twitter that there was a very clear 'actually we're in Middlesex, not London' feedback from voters in Uxbridge

[Blair]

IIRC we could have a Rutherglen and Hamilton West by election in October; although I'm not sure how the dates work with two different recesses coming up.

I imagine it will be interesting; I assume the SNP will try and make the two child cap an issue & attack Starmer from the left. I might be displaying my ignorance but I can't think of another competitive* by election that hasn't featured the Conservatives in the top two for a while?

*there was one in Scotland in 2021 that ended up being close but no-one really realised as Labour were chucking the sink at the local elections.

[Alcibiades]

While obviously Selby and Uxbridge are rather different seats in some ways, in others they’re actually strikingly similar. Compare below:

Socioeconomic status (managerial & professional/intermediate/routine & manual/students/never worked & long-term unemployed) (%):
Selby: 36.8/23.1/29.7/4.8/5.5
Uxbridge: 34.3/22.5/22.7/11.9/8.7

2016 Leave vote (%):
Selby: 57.7
Uxbridge: 57.2

This I think further strongly suggests the primacy of the ULEZ issue in why the Tories held on to Uxbridge. Some of the takes suggesting it proved that Starmer had alienated liberal metropolitan voters* were very silly, and you wonder if the people making them had ever actually been to Uxbridge, which, as the Brexit stat above shows in just one way, is very different to most of London! Of course, in terms of humdrum Outer North London in particular, it may be part of a broader pattern, as this is not the first sign we’ve seen of Labour doing poorly there while doing well in the country, and indeed the capital, as a whole — see the 2021 mayoral election, and the 2022 local results in Harrow and Enfield.

A final note on the ULEZ: something that seems to not have been mentioned very much is that it only applies to older vehicles, which do not meet modern environmental standards (pre-2006 for petrol, and pre-2015 for diesel). It is not my intention at all here to nod to the recent ‘cars are the new class war’ discourse, which I find extremely wrongheaded on the whole, but I think it should not be entirely ignored for the purposes of electoral analysis, in light of the kind of place that Uxbridge is, that the ULEZ is not something which affects people with, for instance, shiny new SUVs.

_{*This could still turn out to be true — indeed there is some extremely tentative evidence that it might be — but this set of by-election results is not proof of it in any way.}

[Blair]

On the above people still get angry as they say they were ‘told’ to buy diesel…

[Alcibiades]

On the above people still get angry as they say they were ‘told’ to buy diesel…

Yes, I remember when it seemed the ‘conventional wisdom’ was that diesel is better than petrol. To provide a very oversimplified summary, I think the issue is that diesel is better as far as CO₂ emissions/global warming are concerned, but worse for local air quality, and it is of course the latter that the ULEZ is designed to improve.

[Zinneke]

Umm yeah I think its valid to be pissed off if you invested in buying a Deisel car having been told by the men in white coats that it is "the future"...similar story for the mass purchasing of massive "hybrid" SUVs in urban areas I see that are dangerous to pedestrians, cyclists, etc! Especially in cities like Brussels that, colour me surprised, like most Medieval cities, are not designed for big cars, but the government insists on giving a huge subsidy to these behemoths because most of the Belgian political class live in the countryside manor.

I support ULEZ in European cities because cycling in Brussels will likely take a few years off my life, but I think the way Diesel car purchasers were shafted by the "hype of the moment" in the scientific community akin to the kind of drip drip bogus science articles you get in MSM every day justifies their anger at such policies too. Compensate the bastards and allocate the Diesel cars to people with less urban travel.