UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Duke of York]

Unless there is actually a May GE, it is very likely this byelection happens if the recall passes. I know there is chatter about Tory whips trying to block it (there was about Wellingborough and Kingswood as well) but it would look especially bad if voters there had effectively asked for it to happen.

a may election esteems unlikely at this point.

There are still some trying to talk it up.

Who is?

[CumbrianLefty]

Quite a few in the media are, a big "splash" in the weekend papers for example.

[TheTide]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68375450

But it was clear from speaking to voters in the rain-lashed town centre on Tuesday evening that some Labour supporters were either not aware of him being dropped by the party or did not care.

Truly bizarre. Not so much the 'don't care' part but the 'not aware' part. The dropping of Ali was the main national news headline for a couple of days. Surely anyone who is engaged enough to be voting in a by-election (or even aware that there is a by-election on) would also at least be glancing at national news headlines, especially when your town is a major subject in them. Were there people voting in the Bermondsey by-election of 1983 with the presumption that Peter Tatchell was a heterosexual Labour moderate?

[AustralianSwingVoter]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68375450

But it was clear from speaking to voters in the rain-lashed town centre on Tuesday evening that some Labour supporters were either not aware of him being dropped by the party or did not care.

Truly bizarre. Not so much the 'don't care' part but the 'not aware' part. The dropping of Ali was the main national news headline for a couple of days. Surely anyone who is engaged enough to be voting in a by-election (or even aware that there is a by-election on) would also at least be glancing at national news headlines, especially when your town is a major subject in them. Were there people voting in the Bermondsey by-election of 1983 with the presumption that Peter Tatchell was a heterosexual Labour moderate?

Leaflet campaigns have always proved to be the most effective way to get a message out in local elections, and Bermondsey had some incredibly vicious ones (“Which Queen will you vote for”). Question is who’d be orchestrating a mass leaflet campaign against Ali, given Galloway agrees with his stance.

[Earthling]

Quite a few in the media are, a big "splash" in the weekend papers for example.

Well, Sunak is still in a very bad position and if he goes for an election in October or November there is still time to get rid of him while that would be impossible by now if the election is in May.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

(“Which Queen will you vote for”)

Four decades later and it remains unclear exactly who was actually responsible for that one.

[Joe Republic]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68375450

But it was clear from speaking to voters in the rain-lashed town centre on Tuesday evening that some Labour supporters were either not aware of him being dropped by the party or did not care.

Truly bizarre. Not so much the 'don't care' part but the 'not aware' part. The dropping of Ali was the main national news headline for a couple of days. Surely anyone who is engaged enough to be voting in a by-election (or even aware that there is a by-election on) would also at least be glancing at national news headlines, especially when your town is a major subject in them. Were there people voting in the Bermondsey by-election of 1983 with the presumption that Peter Tatchell was a heterosexual Labour moderate?

In special elections over here, many voters who are engaged enough to turn out are still only interested in choosing between Candidate (D) or Candidate (R).  They often won't even know their preferred candidate's name.  Is it not the same way over there too, to some extent?

[YL]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68375450

But it was clear from speaking to voters in the rain-lashed town centre on Tuesday evening that some Labour supporters were either not aware of him being dropped by the party or did not care.

Truly bizarre. Not so much the 'don't care' part but the 'not aware' part. The dropping of Ali was the main national news headline for a couple of days. Surely anyone who is engaged enough to be voting in a by-election (or even aware that there is a by-election on) would also at least be glancing at national news headlines, especially when your town is a major subject in them. Were there people voting in the Bermondsey by-election of 1983 with the presumption that Peter Tatchell was a heterosexual Labour moderate?

In special elections over here, many voters who are engaged enough to turn out are still only interested in choosing between Candidate (D) or Candidate (R).  They often won't even know their preferred candidate's name.  Is it not the same way over there too, to some extent?

Undoubtably, but less so in by-elections than in General Elections. There are a number of cases of candidates losing by-elections their party really should have won, which is rare in General Elections.

[Harlow]

What do we think the chances are of the eventual winner in Rochdale getting less than 30% of the vote?

[YL]

What do we think the chances are of the eventual winner in Rochdale getting less than 30% of the vote?

I think it's quite possible, at least if the turnout isn't absurdly low (if it is I suspect Galloway gets over 30%), but the caveat is that I don't think those of us outside Rochdale have much idea of what's really going on.

[CumbrianLefty]

Quite a few in the media are, a big "splash" in the weekend papers for example.

Well, Sunak is still in a very bad position and if he goes for an election in October or November there is still time to get rid of him while that would be impossible by now if the election is in May.

If he sees a crushing defeat in May as near certain, he may still decide to take that chance. After all, quite a few rumoured challenges have fizzled out to nothing already.

[Earthling]

Quite a few in the media are, a big "splash" in the weekend papers for example.

Well, Sunak is still in a very bad position and if he goes for an election in October or November there is still time to get rid of him while that would be impossible by now if the election is in May.

If he sees a crushing defeat in May as near certain, he may still decide to take that chance. After all, quite a few rumoured challenges have fizzled out to nothing already.

I think they know that a massive defeat is almost a given at this point. Limiting the damage might be the best thing they can do in the last months before the election.

Personally i think Sunak will aim for October or November if he feels secure enough and the upcoming tax-cuts fail to close the gap with Labour.

[Alcibiades]

Quite a few in the media are, a big "splash" in the weekend papers for example.

Well, Sunak is still in a very bad position and if he goes for an election in October or November there is still time to get rid of him while that would be impossible by now if the election is in May.

If he sees a crushing defeat in May as near certain, he may still decide to take that chance. After all, quite a few rumoured challenges have fizzled out to nothing already.

Yes, personally I very much doubt he'll be replaced before the election; it seems that at the moment all the anti-Sunak energy is coming from the hard right of the party, but I definitely don't think that a majority exists in the parliamentary party to get rid of him if it's framed as Sunak vs The Right.

[YL]

Scott Benton's suspension has been approved by the House. So, unless he resigns, a recall petition will open in Blackpool South in two weeks' time, with the result likely to be announced on Tuesday 23 April.

[Tintrlvr]

Has there been any recent news of Rochdale at all? The by-election is tomorrow, isn't it? Given how chaotic things were looking a couple of weeks ago, any rumblings of whether Ali is likely to win easily, Galloway is making inroads (or not), Lib Dems or someone else having a secret surge?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The only people likely to have much of a clue if they were to bother (i.e. Labour) are not campaigning, so it's not surprising that no one really knows. No on else involved will have anything approximating sufficient accurate-ish information to be of much use.

[Tintrlvr]

The only people likely to have much of a clue if they were to bother (i.e. Labour) are not campaigning, so it's not surprising that no one really knows. No on else involved will have anything approximating sufficient accurate-ish information to be of much use.

Fair enough. Looking forward to an OMRLP victory tomorrow. (Do we know if results will be reported tomorrow night or Friday morning?)

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Certainly stating the obvious here, but I feel like this is gonna be one of the biggest sh*tshows of a by-election since, well, probably the last time Galloway won. A Loony win would be amazing, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Mark Coleman win either.

[YL]

Andrew Teale's preview of the first Leap Day by-election since 1944.

[Coldstream]

The most likely result is probably still Azhar Ali winning, but really few results would be surprising under the circumstances.

[YL]

It seems to me that for Galloway not to win either (a) the Muslim vote has to be rather weaker for him than it has been in his last two by-election outings or (b) the part of the Labour vote which doesn't go Galloway has to stick with Ali to a fairly large extent. (Or a bit of both, of course.) There's also (c) the anti-Galloway vote gets behind a single non-Ali candidate, but I haven't got the impression that that's happening.

(b) seems a bit unlikely to me. Of course some will stick with him, because they don't know or they don't care or they simply don't want Galloway to win. But I think a significant chunk of people who would otherwise have voted Labour will either stay at home or vote for someone else. (Who? Probably a mix: some Lib Dem, some Reform UK, some one of the Independents, maybe the odd one for the Loony. Even the Tory might pick up a few.)

I think (a) is hard to judge from the outside, but if I have to guess I'd say Galloway wins. If (a) does happen I assume Ali wins. In either scenario the winning vote share could be unusually low.

[Coldstream]

It seems to me that for Galloway not to win either (a) the Muslim vote has to be rather weaker for him than it has been in his last two by-election outings or (b) the part of the Labour vote which doesn't go Galloway has to stick with Ali to a fairly large extent. (Or a bit of both, of course.) There's also (c) the anti-Galloway vote gets behind a single non-Ali candidate, but I haven't got the impression that that's happening.

(b) seems a bit unlikely to me. Of course some will stick with him, because they don't know or they don't care or they simply don't want Galloway to win. But I think a significant chunk of people who would otherwise have voted Labour will either stay at home or vote for someone else. (Who? Probably a mix: some Lib Dem, some Reform UK, some one of the Independents, maybe the odd one for the Loony. Even the Tory might pick up a few.)

I think (a) is hard to judge from the outside, but if I have to guess I'd say Galloway wins. If (a) does happen I assume Ali wins. In either scenario the winning vote share could be unusually low.

I think b assumes that people care/know a lot more about what’s happened to Ali than I think people will. He’s still down as Labour on the ballot paper at the end of the day and PV’s had started before he was dropped.

Fundamentally, only 30% of the seat is Muslim too, there’s not really any margin of error for Galloway (who is a lot more tainted than he was in 2012).

[Torrain]

Yeah, the narrowness of Galloway's path, is what stuck out from Ben Walker's New Statesman article on Rochdale - his vote total, post-Labour expulsion, has always run under the total Muslim vote share:

It’s not a one-to-one comparison (he seems to pick up some white working class populists too, while losing a portion of the Muslim vote to mainstream parties), but a pretty important benchmark, given the comparison to seats like Bradford West.

The lack of an official Labour candidate or frontbench-led campaign against Galloway does throw out some of the conventional wisdom though.

[TheTide]

https://twitter.com/NickGriffinBU/status/1763133155408564608?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

Yeah, the narrowness of Galloway's path, is what stuck out from Ben Walker's New Statesman article on Rochdale - his vote total, post-Labour expulsion, has always run under the total Muslim vote share:

It’s not a one-to-one comparison (he seems to pick up some white working class populists too, while losing a portion of the Muslim vote to mainstream parties), but a pretty important benchmark, given the comparison to seats like Bradford West.

The lack of an official Labour candidate or frontbench-led campaign against Galloway does throw out some of the conventional wisdom though.

There's the legitimate possibility - and perhaps one of the better outcomes for Labour - of turnout just being far,  far, lower than anything comparable in history. In which case Galloways vote would probably overshoot the Muslim population, but everyone would be aware that Labour could brush him aside if they actually got their campaign together.