UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[adma]

Does the Rochdale seat change much in redistribution? Presumably no matter who wins the byelection its almost certain Labour wins the seat in the general election and this byelection will tell us absolutely nothing about national trends.

From Labour's POV what is the least bad outcome? Ali still winning under the Labour label but having to sit as an independent? Danczuk winning and giving Reform UK a seat? Galloway winning? A Tory coming up the middle? Could the Lib Dems fill the vacuum, they held this seat many years ago

The Lib Dems are tainted by *who* held this seat many years ago.

[EastAnglianLefty]

All this is in line with a single-minded focus on (even the mere appearance of) anti-Semitism from Starmer. To the exclusion of anything else.

The comments reported recently just seem in line with what has been reported by mainstream media (that there was an intelligence failure). Labour's problem is that they couldn't have picked anyone who was supportive of Starmer's line on Israel without that defining the by-election, so presumably they picked someone who would neutralize the issue (in their hopes). But now the news will be entirely defined by their mushiness on Gaza.

This is not correct. It went beyond the stories of an intelligence failure and of Netanyahu having neglected the Gaza front at the expense of the West Bank, to saying that Netanyahu was actively aware that the attack was coming and allowed it to take place.

Ali's statements (including the new ones) have some basis in factual reports, but go beyond what they say and put them together in ways that are conspiratorial.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

This has now been dramatically transformed from the most boring to the most interesting of the trio of by-elections currently taking place.

[CumbrianLefty]

Does the Rochdale seat change much in redistribution? Presumably no matter who wins the byelection its almost certain Labour wins the seat in the general election and this byelection will tell us absolutely nothing about national trends.

From Labour's POV what is the least bad outcome? Ali still winning under the Labour label but having to sit as an independent? Danczuk winning and giving Reform UK a seat? Galloway winning? A Tory coming up the middle? Could the Lib Dems fill the vacuum, they held this seat many years ago

This is still almost certainly the least worst outcome from a Labour POV. One thing that is now beyond doubt is that there will be a new Labour candidate for Rochdale in a GE that is less than a year away.

One might see a LibDem win as less terrible than some plausible outcomes, but - in keeping with this seemingly cursed byelection - their candidate has now been revealed as having a bit of a fondness for Nazi salutes

[warandwar]

All this is in line with a single-minded focus on (even the mere appearance of) anti-Semitism from Starmer. To the exclusion of anything else.

The comments reported recently just seem in line with what has been reported by mainstream media (that there was an intelligence failure). Labour's problem is that they couldn't have picked anyone who was supportive of Starmer's line on Israel without that defining the by-election, so presumably they picked someone who would neutralize the issue (in their hopes). But now the news will be entirely defined by their mushiness on Gaza.

This is not correct. It went beyond the stories of an intelligence failure and of Netanyahu having neglected the Gaza front at the expense of the West Bank, to saying that Netanyahu was actively aware that the attack was coming and allowed it to take place.

Ali's statements (including the new ones) have some basis in factual reports, but go beyond what they say and put them together in ways that are conspiratorial.

I can't speak for the UK, but it is a fairly common analysis I've heard in the us. I don't think it is true, but I also don't think it is particularly conspiratorial or anti-semitic. It doesn't really matter, the main thing is that they had to pick someone who supported a ceasefire, but couldn't expand on the reasons why. I think it was an impossible situation that was bound to result in leaks like this.

[YL]

From Labour's POV what is the least bad outcome? Ali still winning under the Labour label but having to sit as an independent? Danczuk winning and giving Reform UK a seat? Galloway winning? A Tory coming up the middle? Could the Lib Dems fill the vacuum, they held this seat many years ago

This is still almost certainly the least worst outcome from a Labour POV. One thing that is now beyond doubt is that there will be a new Labour candidate for Rochdale in a GE that is less than a year away.

I think that an OMRLP win would be preferable to Ali winning. Most of the other possibilities have their downsides too but basically there is no great outcome for Labour at this point and the best thing is to confine the damage to Rochdale as much as possible.

One might see a LibDem win as less terrible than some plausible outcomes, but - in keeping with this seemingly cursed byelection - their candidate has now been revealed as having a bit of a fondness for Nazi salutes

I've read the Manchester Evening News story on that and it's one of the flimsiest political allegations I've ever seen.

[YL]

Does the Rochdale seat change much in redistribution? Presumably no matter who wins the byelection its almost certain Labour wins the seat in the general election and this byelection will tell us absolutely nothing about national trends.

It loses one ward, Spotland & Falinge, to what will now be called Heywood & Middleton North. That ward used to be a Lib Dem (and previously Liberal) stronghold but the Lib Dems fell away dramatically in Rochdale in the early Coalition years, perhaps as much to do with the revelations about Cyril Smith (whose powerbase was in that part of the town) as the national issues at the time. It's a fairly working class ward but it's far from the most deprived in the constituency; it's also about average for the constituency in its religious demographics. Its removal won't make much difference in Rochdale but its addition to the other seat is estimated to have been decisive on 2019 figures.

[Tintrlvr]

Does the Rochdale seat change much in redistribution? Presumably no matter who wins the byelection its almost certain Labour wins the seat in the general election and this byelection will tell us absolutely nothing about national trends.

From Labour's POV what is the least bad outcome? Ali still winning under the Labour label but having to sit as an independent? Danczuk winning and giving Reform UK a seat? Galloway winning? A Tory coming up the middle? Could the Lib Dems fill the vacuum, they held this seat many years ago

The Lib Dems are tainted by *who* held this seat many years ago.

While there is certainly truth in this, I think it's vastly overstated, and the fall of the Lib Dems in Rochdale is not really any more severe or pervasive than in other left-wing areas where the Lib Dems were influential before the Coalition. If anything, what was strange was the prior Lib Dem strength, which before the Blair years was quite unusual for a place like Rochdale.

In local elections, the Lib Dems mainly win the handful of middle class mostly white wards, but there is a surprisingly high Lib Dem vote in the Muslim areas as well (if you look at recent local elections, the Lib Dems were winning in the mid-30s in many of the Muslim seats with Labour in the high 50s). This probably means it is harder than one might expect for the Lib Dems to advance in this by-election as a significant portion of the non-Labour Muslim dissenter vote that still votes Lib Dem locally will go to Galloway.

[DL]

Didn't I read that the Green candidate in Rochdale has also had to sand down after revelations....?

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

All this is in line with a single-minded focus on (even the mere appearance of) anti-Semitism from Starmer. To the exclusion of anything else.

The comments reported recently just seem in line with what has been reported by mainstream media (that there was an intelligence failure). Labour's problem is that they couldn't have picked anyone who was supportive of Starmer's line on Israel without that defining the by-election, so presumably they picked someone who would neutralize the issue (in their hopes). But now the news will be entirely defined by their mushiness on Gaza.

This is not correct. It went beyond the stories of an intelligence failure and of Netanyahu having neglected the Gaza front at the expense of the West Bank, to saying that Netanyahu was actively aware that the attack was coming and allowed it to take place.

Ali's statements (including the new ones) have some basis in factual reports, but go beyond what they say and put them together in ways that are conspiratorial.

I can't speak for the UK, but it is a fairly common analysis I've heard in the us. I don't think it is true, but I also don't think it is particularly conspiratorial or anti-semitic. It doesn't really matter, the main thing is that they had to pick someone who supported a ceasefire, but couldn't expand on the reasons why. I think it was an impossible situation that was bound to result in leaks like this.

You might not consider it to be particularly conspiratorial because it and related are the most common conspiracy mentioned in times of war.

World War II - FDR knew Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor
Vietnam - LBJ knew the Gulf of Tonkin incident had nothing to do with North Vietnam
First Iraq War - George H W told Saddam Hussein he could take Kuwait.

I think I'm missing a couple.

Edit to add: World War I - Wilson allowed Germany to sink the Lusitania (it still took the U.S a couple years to enter World War I after that.)

This only leaves out the Korean 'conflict.'

It's still conspiratorial. It's been confirmed that Netanyahu covertly allowed Hamas to receive funding from organizations connected to Iran in order to keep Hamas around so as to allow him to claim that he couldn't negotiate because Palestinian leadership was divided, but anything more is a conspiracy theory.

Certainly though Netanyahu is such an evil person that conspiracy theories like this are more believable.

[Torrain]

Didn't I read that the Green candidate in Rochdale has also had to sand down after revelations....?

Aye, he's also been disavowed by his party, after making less than savoury comments about the situation in Gaza, and Muslims in general, in tweets from 2013-2015. I haven't seen them reproduced anywhere, so going off the second-hand reports from local papers.

[Joe Republic]

We need a complete and total shutdown of Rochdale until we can figure out what is going on.

[Dr. Cynic]

When has Rochdale ever NOT elected someone completely horrible? Liz Lynne, I guess?

[EastAnglianLefty]

When has Rochdale ever NOT elected someone completely horrible? Liz Lynne, I guess?

Tony Lloyd was good and Paul Rowen had a decent reputation.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just so people are clear on the legal position here, once the relevant deadline has passed it is not possible for a party to withdraw the nomination of their candidate, either to replace them with someone else or to run no one at all. The deadline is a relatively ungenerous one largely due to postal votes. All that can be done is essentially symbolic: a party can declare that it no longer endorses its nominated candidate, as two parties (so far!) have done in the case of Rochdale. The impact of the polite fiction that is 'disendorsement' is variable, though always negative: there have been cases where it can't have cost more than a handful of percentage points (as happened at - and this is quite funny I suppose - Wellingborough in 2015, after the conviction of the Labour candidate on a minor fraud charge) and cases where it has caused a complete cratering of support (as happened at North West Norfolk in 2010). By-elections are low turnout affairs (if higher turnout than local elections) which means that an unusually high proportion of votes are always cast via postal ballots. Against that, the day vote is more fickle.

When has Rochdale ever NOT elected someone completely horrible? Liz Lynne, I guess?

Tony Lloyd was widely respected even by people who agreed with him about very little. Which I suppose makes Rochdale's return to type all the more... sigh.

[DL]

FYI, in the last Canadian federal election there were a couple of cases of Liberal candidates being dropped AFTER the deadline to replace them on the ballot. One was an incumbent and the other was a new candidate in a seat where the Liberals were heavily favoured.

The Liberal incumbent in Kitchener Centre was disavowed 10 days before the election due to some sexual harassment allegations. He was still on the ballot but came in fourth and the Green party candidate won - seems that behind the scenes the Liberals let it be known that Green was the next best thing.

In the downtown Toronto riding of Spadina-Fort York, it came out four days before the election that the Liberal candidate had concealed being discharged from the military for some sexual harassment case (notice a pattern here). He was disavowed, but thousands of votes had already been cast in the advance polls and it was so close to election day that many voters may not have been aware that he had been disavowed and he narrowly won over the NDP candidate. Seems the NDP won the e-day vote but the ex-Liberal banked a lot of advance poll votes. He now sits as an independent and is a pariah in the House of Commons.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

All this is in line with a single-minded focus on (even the mere appearance of) anti-Semitism from Starmer. To the exclusion of anything else.

The comments reported recently just seem in line with what has been reported by mainstream media (that there was an intelligence failure). Labour's problem is that they couldn't have picked anyone who was supportive of Starmer's line on Israel without that defining the by-election, so presumably they picked someone who would neutralize the issue (in their hopes). But now the news will be entirely defined by their mushiness on Gaza.

This is not correct. It went beyond the stories of an intelligence failure and of Netanyahu having neglected the Gaza front at the expense of the West Bank, to saying that Netanyahu was actively aware that the attack was coming and allowed it to take place.

Ali's statements (including the new ones) have some basis in factual reports, but go beyond what they say and put them together in ways that are conspiratorial.

I can't speak for the UK, but it is a fairly common analysis I've heard in the us. I don't think it is true, but I also don't think it is particularly conspiratorial or anti-semitic. It doesn't really matter, the main thing is that they had to pick someone who supported a ceasefire, but couldn't expand on the reasons why. I think it was an impossible situation that was bound to result in leaks like this.

You might not consider it to be particularly conspiratorial because it and related are the most common conspiracy mentioned in times of war.

World War II - FDR knew Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor
Vietnam - LBJ knew the Gulf of Tonkin incident had nothing to do with North Vietnam
First Iraq War - George H W told Saddam Hussein he could take Kuwait.

I think I'm missing a couple.

The most famous one, of the 20th century, being  certain 9/11 truther theories.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I wonder if Rochdale resident Gillian Duffy is still alive, and who she might be voting for?

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Meanwhile down under a particularly famous disendorsed candidate would be Pauline Hanson, disowned by Howard after calling for the abolition of special assistance for Aboriginals. She’d flip the previously safe seat anyway, swept up in the landslide rejection of Keating.

[adma]

In the downtown Toronto riding of Spadina-Fort York, it came out four days before the election that the Liberal candidate had concealed being discharged from the military for some sexual harassment case (notice a pattern here). He was disavowed, but thousands of votes had already been cast in the advance polls and it was so close to election day that many voters may not have been aware that he had been disavowed and he narrowly won over the NDP candidate. Seems the NDP won the e-day vote but the ex-Liberal banked a lot of advance poll votes. He now sits as an independent and is a pariah in the House of Commons.

And for all one knows, he could have lost had the pandemic not elevated the advance and special voting count...

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

Polls are open in Wellingborough and Kingswood.

Unlike other recent by-elections, the BBC doesn't seem to have any dedicated overnight coverage scheduled. BBC One broadcasts BBC News throughout most of the night, but I think it usually does anyway. In any case we are long past the days when broadcasters would commission exit polls for by-elections.

[YL]

Andrew Teale's previews of Wellingborough and Kingswood

[YL]

There's a fair amount of scepticism about this poll of Wellingborough but it's worth posting:

https://twitter.com/kevcunningham/status/1757895878897992172

[CumbrianLefty]

It has marginally shifted the betting odds there, but not hugely.

"Believe it when we see it" seems to be the general response.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1758092089806512238?t=tQdNMil7y5S2oX2rSjLhxQ&...

See you all tomorrow then.