UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Cassius]

There is an argument the West of England and West Yorkshire mayor contests are at least as vital as Tees Valley, and both could be bright spots for Labour.

I suppose this rather depends on how they win those contests. Labour can win the West of England just by running up the numbers in Bristol (where they underperformed a bit in the 2017 mayoral race), but that hardly indicates progress since the last election given that they won all the Bristol seats comfortably in 2019 (they even got a bigger majority in North West, the one real Labour-Tory marginal). Similar thing with West Yorkshire, although in fairness they did perform quite a bit worse there in 2019 than in 2017, so perhaps it will be more interesting. All depends on where Labour win, not just if they win.

[Cassius]

Given the #trends I’d think a number of other Welsh seats are more likely to fall to the Tories than the Vale, especially given the party’s anemic performance there in 2019 (although that could’ve been partly due to the scandal Alun Cairns became embroiled in mid campaign). Expecting Jane Huttdini to cling on there again.

See also Cardiff North, which used to be one of the party’s better Welsh prospects but was actually lost by.a larger margin in 2019 than 2017. The Vale is similar (although more rural), in the sense that it’s a commuter belt kind of seat, and the Tories have generally performed underwhelmingly in those for the last few years.

[Cassius]

It will be interesting to see how Paul ‘NO ROME RULE’ Mason reconciles his evangelical fervour for Labour to ignore places like Hartlepool as part of its election strategy with his desire to replace Starmer as Labour leader with a supporter of ‘luxury auto communism’.

[Cassius]

It will be interesting to see how Paul ‘NO ROME RULE’ Mason reconciles his evangelical fervour for Labour to ignore places like Hartlepool as part of its election strategy with his desire to replace Starmer as Labour leader with a supporter of ‘luxury auto communism’.

Mason backed Starmer for leader, interestingly enough.

I mean Long-Bailey was a pApIsT so no good options in the field. My understanding is that his preferred candidate was Clive Lewis, but obviously he didn’t make it to the member’s ballot.

[Cassius]

Amusingly enough they were beaten to fourth place by another of the thousand fragments of UKIP, the Heritage Party, which is led by a London Assembly member.

[Cassius]

I’m not too sure Starmer is the solution. Whilst I don’t think the left are correct when they say the party needs to present a radical image and policies in order to enthuse the electorate, I think they are correct about enthusing the electorate and Starmer just... doesn’t, seem to have it in him. This is the thing, Blair ran as a moderate, but he was able to enthuse a significant chunk of the electorate, whereas Starmer doesn’t seem to elicit any significant emotions at all. To my way of thinking he’s increasingly coming across as a kind of Labour Michael Howard (also a successful barrister funnily enough); someone who’ll be clinical and forensic (which seem to be the media’s main two adjectives for him) and  who can embarrass the government at the PMQs and maybe even stabilise the party’s position and secure some gains at the next election, but not a man who’s going to lead the party back into power.

Obviously, its been a funny old year and Starmer’ shadow a more difficult job than is usual for an opposition leader. I just don’t see what tricks he has up his sleeve post-pandemic to improve both his own image and that of the Labour Party.

[Cassius]

They should run a candidate because they’re a national party with 200 seats in the Commons. They’ve gotta fly the flag even if it doesn’t do very much good. Plus, whilst I don’t think the Lib Dems have a hope in Hell of winning the seat, Labour running a candidate lessens the chances of the anti-Tory vote coalescing around them. It would hardly be great optics if the Lib Dems win/come close in a safe Tory seat months after Labour losing a traditionally safe seat to the government (and yes, obviously, different circumstances but that’s not how it would play in the media).

[Cassius]

Chesham and Amersham will be on June 17.
https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/your-council/council-and-democracy/election-and-voting/election-timetable-and-notices/

Very close to June 21, why didn't the Tories just have it after they have eliminated all social distancing restrictions?

We don’t know for sure that they will lift all the restrictions on June 21st, but even if they do, perhaps it’s better for them to have the anticipation of freedom in the voters minds (whereas I suspect if they have it after people will quickly forget about it).

[Cassius]

Chesham and Amersham will be on June 17.
https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/your-council/council-and-democracy/election-and-voting/election-timetable-and-notices/

Very close to June 21, why didn't the Tories just have it after they have eliminated all social distancing restrictions?

We don’t know for sure that they will lift all the restrictions on June 21st, but even if they do, perhaps it’s better for them to have the anticipation of freedom in the voters minds (whereas I suspect if they have it after people will quickly forget about it).

I mean ultimately it probably makes very little difference to the result either way and gets the seat filled quicker.

I'm not sure I like our candidate though.

What’s the issue with him? Seems like a reasonably decent bloke from the articles I’ve read.

[Cassius]

I’m sure the result being due to a backlash over HS2 and the new planning laws won’t prevent parts of the media trying to crowbar in the old ‘Tories under threat in their heartland due to Brexit and socially liberal internationalist (lol) voters leaving the party’ narrative.

[Cassius]

I've had it up to here with people calling south Buckinghamshire "progressive." The Guardian recently alluded to it being "bourgeois bohemian."
Somewhere doesn't vote over 50% Tory in 2001 if it's progressive!

Tbf this seems like the kind of place that changes landscape fairly quickly in 20 years. Maybe in another 20 years, with HS2 and better train infrastructure in general, and in a world where Corona doesn't happen and put the brakes on London's overpopulation, this place would look a lot more progressive.

Yes, it’s certainly true that a lot of these places have changed in the intervening twenty years - after all, a lot of the voters who voted in 2001 are, for lack of a better word, dead, and new ones have arrived/come of age to take their place (also bear in mind that 2001 was an extremely low turnout election by British standards, which probably benefited the Tories somewhat).

On the other hand, as has been recapitulated at length by other posters, the reasons for the Lib Dems victory here were basically conservative, reactionary even, ie opposition to any infrastructure/housing development in the local area. Now I’ve got no objection to that (I grew up in and my Mum still lives in a similarly rural place and I hate the new estates of Garage Mahals popping up all over the place there), but to frame it as ‘progressive’ strikes me as incorrect (no one would ever accuse me of being a ‘progressive’ that’s for sure!). I remember reading a set of interviews with some constituents where one, who had recently arrived from London, stated bluntly that new builds (which would presumably house further arrivals from London) were destroying ‘the character’ of the local area, which is in essence pitch perfect ‘I’m alright Jack pull up the ladder’ type stuff which one would think people of a progressive bent would be immune to (of course they’re not, but that’s a whole other argument).

[Cassius]

Batley and Spen by-election today.

I'm going to be bold with my prediction (why not?) and say:
- Tories win
- Tories increase their share from 2019 by around 8%
- Galloway and Leadbeater are within 5% of each other
- Galloway comes ahead of Leadbeater

So something like:
Conservatives 40-47%
Galloway 23-33%
Labour 21-30%
LibDems 2%

I am going to either look really smart or really foolish in 24 hours.  Probably the latter

I would be extremely suprised I'd Galloway breaks 5%, European Muslims generaly haven't had a problem with LGBT candidates and in unsure why it would be different here

He's the main 'protest' candidate which is always worth a fair few votes in a by-election. I doubt he'll reach the 20s but 10% seems quite plausible.

Yeah, I’m sceptical that Galloway will poll particularly well, 5-10% seems a reasonable figure. I think the issue here is that a lot of people are likely conflating Batley and Spen with Bradford West, even though the latter has a much larger Muslim population (second highest percentage for any constituency in the country I believe). Now, obviously, not every Galloway voter is a Muslim and certainly not every Muslim is a Galloway voter, even so it seems that the seat’s Muslim communities are his key support base and they’re simply not large enough to give him a huge result like the one he got in Bradford West. Still, 5-10% could well make the difference and deny it to Labour, but I’m inclined to think they’re still in with a shout and that it will be close.

[Cassius]

Galloway wouldn’t have won here in any year (except for, well, when he was a Labour member) because the Muslim populations (which are far from monolithically for him but nonetheless still seem to be his core base of support) simply aren’t big enough in B&S, unlike in Bradford West (where they represent a majority of the voters in the seat) or in Bethnal Green and Bow (where they didn’t and don’t, but were nonetheless substantially larger than in B&S, and even there he only won by a whisker). In terms of votes received, it’s his best showing for a while, but thanks to Labour squeaking back (they’re bloody lucky the Greens withdrew their candidate), Starmer is now safe(er) and so Gorgeous George can’t claim to be the man that killed/crippled Starmer’s leadership, which he’ll obviously be p***** off about.

[Cassius]

For Old Bexley & Sidcup one interesting thing will be to see how well Reform UK do.  They've put in a fair amount of effort, the seat is reasonably friendly to them demographically, and their leader is the candidate, so if they're going to be much more than just another party on the ballot paper getting a few percent they ought to be getting a decent vote.  I just have the feeling, though, that they've not really managed to establish their new brand (not that I'm in the target audience).

Can they get over 10%?

I think the sidelining of environmental issues due to Johnson repeatedly punching himself in the face over the last month will probably keep their share low. Had all the attention been on the possible costs of Net Zero and the PM kowtowing to ‘woke environmentalists’ they might have been able to pick up a decent vote from disgruntled Tories and protest voters. We’ll see though.

[Cassius]

Rants aside the election is tomorrow.

The Government has had such an awful month that anything other than a lose will be written off by the Westminster bubble as a win for the PM* & a much needed reprieve.  It shouldn't though; this is pretty much how a safe by-election Tory safe seat would look if you designed it in a lab.

My hunch is still that the Conservatives will hold it.

*although it's equally likely that covid news & Christmas makes this all a very short footnote in a bigger story

I feel the bubble of expectation has swollen to such mammoth proportions, partly because almost everyone other than the PM is now invested in the Tories losing, that even a narrow hold will quite easily be spun this way (a bit like Batley and Spen but in reverse).

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/MartinDaubney/status/1471225281163808784?s=20

Reclaim Party candidate seems to be appealing to the crucial Brown Battalions demographic with this kind of iconography.

[Cassius]

Would this be the first by-election for a while where the party in third at the GE has won?

If we discount the two UKIP by-election wins (where the party didn’t stand at the preceding election) and George Galloway’s win in Bradford in 2012 (where Respect had come in fifth place in 2010), this would be the first time since Leicester South in 2004 (which the Lib Dems also won).

[Cassius]

Would this be the first by-election for a while where the party in third at the GE has won?

If we discount the two UKIP by-election wins (where the party didn’t stand at the preceding election) and George Galloway’s win in Bradford in 2012 (where Respect had come in fifth place in 2010), this would be the first time since Leicester South in 2004 (which the Lib Dems also won).

Ah the lesser known of the 2004 by-elections- I know of the Birmingham one for it's well, rather yikes, New Labour approach to immigration that only West Midlands Labour could do.

'I know that people here are worried about fraudulent asylum claims and illegal immigration. Yet the Lib Dems ignore what people say. They ignore what local people really want. The Lib Dems want to keep giving welfare benefits to failed asylum seekers. They voted for this in Parliament on 1 March 2004. They want your money -and mine - to go to failed asylum seekers.'

Labour didn't mention that the disputed measure was a plan to take the children of asylum seekers from their parents and put them into care, which Michael Howard had denounced as 'despicable'.

The leaflet implied that Byrne was a comrade of the working class rather than a former City slicker who made his pile as an accountant at Andersons Consulting and a banker at NM Rothschild. 'I know what you want,' he cried. 'Someone who is tough and on your side. Someone who wants the same as you. And I do. I want to push my new baby's buggy along the road without having to face a gang of youths spitting and swearing.'

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/aug/22/politicalcolumnists.guardiancolumnists

Wait so the labour candidate took a position to the right of Michael Howard on immigration and lost the by election?

Byrne actually won the by-election (and is still in parliament to this very day, having had a rather pratfall ridden career), albeit narrowly. Labour lost Leicester South on the same day.

[Cassius]

quick question.

can UK have a leadership election for the PM's position or is it just a vote of no confidence?

Labour had a bunch of leadership elections while JC was in charge but that makes sense cos you are not changing PM.

feels like its a bit unfair to change PM internally unless they resign or lose a voc vote. calling a snap general election even a thing?

The PM is appointed by the Queen, who could, in theory, choose absolutely anybody in the country to hold the position (this afternoon the Queen could decide to sack Johnson and appoint me in his place). In practice however, the convention now is that whomsoever the Queen appoints as PM must have the confidence of the House of Commons. This was something much more fluid in the pre-modern era, however, nowadays that person is always the leader of the party that can command in a majority in the House of Commons. In the case of the Conservative party, the leadership election technically has nothing to do with the process of appointing the PM, but as the new leader will become the leader of the majority party in the house, convention dictates that the Queen appoint him or her as PM.

There are otherwise no conventions around the changing of a leader and calling a snap election is not one of them (although new PM’s often feel as though they need a new mandate from the public if they’ve been appointed mid-term). Of course, given our lack of a written constitution, it could become convention for an ‘unelected’ PM to have to call a general election after assuming office (in the same manner as we seem to be feeling our way to a new convention on party switching MP’s resigning and standing for re-election), but it seems pretty unlikely.

[Cassius]

Full Results (incl. raw vote totals):

Paulette Hamilton (Lab) 9,413 (55.51%)
Robert Alden (C) 6,147 (36.25%)
Dave Nellist (TUSC) 360 (2.12%)
Jack Brookes (Reform) 293 (1.73%)
Siobhan Harper-Nunes (Green) 236 (1.39%)
Lee Dargue (LD) 173 (1.02%)
Michael Lutwyche (Ind) 109 (0.64%)
Mel Mbondiah (CPA) 79 (0.47%)
Thomas O’Rourke (Ind) 76 (0.45%)
SirNosDa The Good Knight (Loony) 49 (0.29%)
Clifton Holmes (Ind) 14 (0.08%)
David Bishop (BP Elvis) 8 (0.05%)

Lab maj 3,266 (19.26%)

Electorate 62,996; Turnout 16,957 (26.92%, -26.34%)

We need to see more of this man and his blessed joke name in the future.

[Cassius]

On a slightly amusing note I have been "invited to stand as a parliamentary candidate" by RefUK. They must be really desperate for candidates. I'm nuts.

You should accept if you want and be a paper candidate so you can get the distinction of being an Atlas poster who ran for office along with Harry Hayfield and afleitch.

That would be quite funny ngl.

However I would inevitably crash a car or start a devastating fire or say something outrageous whilst campaigning and end up (in)famous and/or in prison.

I mean that type of behaviour is basically how Farage made himself a political player, so who knows, you might end up as party leader and take Reform to 20% in the polls very quickly. Of course you’d eventually have to start saying ‘Up the RA’ on cameo videos, but that’s the kind of price that anyone who makes a deal with the devil has to pay.

[Cassius]

Are there going to be any Conservative MPs left in the Commons by the end of the year? Open question.

[Cassius]

There's a polling phenomenon that was once prevalent but seems to have died a death: the Lib Dems getting a major surge after an upset by-election win. Didn't happen after North Shropshire, Chesham and Amersham etc and presumably won't happen now. Another one is the party conference bounce. Neither by-elections nor party conferences are treated as the big deal by the media that they used to be so this perhaps isn't surprising.

I think it’s also the case that whilst people are happy to treat the Lib Dems as a receptacle for protest/tactical votes in by-elections, the party’s participation in the Coalition and subsequent attitude towards the EU debate have put a fairly hard ceiling on the party’s national polling prospects - they can no longer be all things to all people.

That said, as Frank pointed out they have drifted upwards into the low teens over the last six months, which presumably is the result of them peeling off a segment of ‘liberal’ Tories who were previously willing to give Johnson the benefit of the doubt.

[Cassius]

Its a much more intrinsically holdable seat for the Tories in a byelection than either NS or T&H - even before any boost for a new Tory leader is taken into account* - more Old Bexley/Sidcup vibes really.

(*though let's not forget Johnson lost Brecon/Radnor just weeks into his tenure as PM)

That was in a seat with a historically very strong Liberal (not Democrat) presence though - the kind of seat where the Liberal Democrats’ mendacious bar charts could actually be reasonably placed in their election literature.

[Cassius]

Maybe you need a repeat of Carswell or Reckless?

Cameron offering a referendum was arguably the trigger for the UKIP surge, ironic as that may be. The Carswell and Reckless defections were after the UKIP 'victory' in the European elections (which probably has to be considered UKIP's peak).

The UKIP surge was actually well under way in 2012, with them getting into double digits on a regular basis by the end of the year and scoring well at by-elections (12% in Middlesbrough, 15% in Corby and 22% in Rotherham). Personally I’m a believer in the theory (which I think George Osborne has also advanced) that one of the major triggers for the rise of UKIP wasn’t, in fact, Europe, but instead same-sex marriage, which was regularly in the headlines throughout 2012 and pissed off a lot of traditional Tory supporters. Obviously it wasn’t the only factor (2012 was probably the Coalition’s worst year, with it spinning its wheels in the mud amidst a stagnant economy and legislative failures), but I think it was a key factor that divided Cameron (and Miliband for that matter, although for him it was less of a problem) from a lot of ‘conservative with a small c’ older and middle aged voters for whom UKIP provided a convenient receptacle of protest (which of course was a role that the Lib Dem’s could no longer fulfil).