UK By-elections thread, 2021-

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Thought a new thread would be worth it, given the last by-election we had was in 2019 (Brecon and Radnorshire, how time flies). This time Mike Hill (Lab) has stepped down in Hartlepool for sexual harassment. Hartlepool is a big piece of the supposed Red Wall, that probably only didn't fall in 2019 due the fact the Brexit Party leader was standing, recieving 25% of the vote. Hartlepool in general has been given to electing novelty candidates: their first elected mayor was one of those guys who dressed like a gorilla or whatever and they apparently came to actually like longtime MP Peter Mandelson.

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https://twitter.com/PaulWilliamsLAB/status/46719898705072129?s=20

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I want to have some of what Ladbrokes punters are smoking.

https://mobile.twitter.com/LadPolitics/status/1372098638281895939

It would be awesome if they gained traction in this race, but I don't see them getting much of anything.

They're literally a Twitter meme party, lol.

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Lmao apparently NIP may run Thelma Walker, MP for Colne Valley for two years.

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Another former Labour MP makes an appearance: Lancaster and Wyre MP from 1997-2005, Hilton Dawson for the North East Party. NEP is much less known online than NIP, but is a lot more locally known.

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And Tracy Babin looks set for election, so pencil Batley and Spen in to your diaries. Of course, we didn't have a by election here too long ago, although the circumstances were ... very different.

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Fun fact: the Labour Party has only made one gain in a by-election in the 21st century (Corby in 2012).

In general, the party has had bad luck in what seats have come up; but it's been a very poor record - even in the Miliband era you had herculean efforts to win seats like Heywood and Middleton etc. The rot has been settling in, and sadly it's bigger than Corbyn and Starmer.

Maybe this matters, maybe this doesn't: after all the Lib Dems have a history of patting themselves on their back and then flopping in the real election (before Chesham we have Eastleigh and Richmond Park, both of which were washed away in the very next election). But the fact is we have a repeated event of Labour desperately trying to stop losses from opposition, even in times of unpopular governments. Peterborough. Hartlepool. Stoke Central. Copeland.

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I never trust sources. I'm going to say narrow Labour win, joke turnout, Galloway just wins his deposit. This is based on absolutely nothing btw.

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George Galloway appears to be the first left-wing leader in Great Britain since Tony Blair to figure out to simultaneously appeal to both "working-class whites" (there's probably a million generic terms for this group) and non-white/non-Christian immigrants/minorities, but that's not a conversation we're ready to have.

That being said, Keir Starmer proved people right that it's not a binary choice between appealing to "working-class whites" and marginalized minority groups. You can alienate both!

Even the most effete out of touch hypothetical Labour leader would be a million times more popular with working class whites and minorities than Galloway would be in the same position. Galloway has run in approximately eight hundred seats over the past decade, and almost always relies on grubby opportunist antics; and when he doesn't manage to find his little niche he typically sinks like a stone.

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I’d be fascinated to see how members of the farming community voted; Labour made a big outreach (Keir was the first leader to speak at the NFU conference for a decade) and there’s been a number of rows over their treatment by the Government- not helped by Boris saying ‘let the pigs die’,

I've heard credible second-hand reports and rumours of grumbling and muttering from the farming community in North Shropshire about various issues - material pressures (many of which are Brexit-related), concerns about the government's enthusiasm for 'free trade' deals, irritation that Paterson (who was supposed to be their man) wasn't pulling his weight (which added to anger at what he was actually doing instead...), that kind of thing. The farming community in North Shropshire is dominated by dairying and is overwhelmingly comprised of landowning farmers so is ordinarily extremely Tory (we're probably taking over 90% here), but there are good reasons to believe that there was a very large slump. Probably more still voted Conservative than for the LibDem, but when what is normally an absolute pillar gets wobbly that's really, really bad...

Dairying (and pomological and viticultural) communities in the US tend to vote to the left of big cereal grain/legume agriculture communities and WAY to the left of ranching communities. Is that not the case in England?

I think thw general rule is that dairy and sheep farmers are far more depressed and miserable than wheat farmers, but they are basically small businessmen/managers/owners so not particularly inclined to vote Labour. The non-Tory vote comes from smallholders and artisanal types who are happy enough voting Lib Dem or even Green (bear in mind the Green Party proper has policies that would not be remotely popular with even the most organic hippy farmer, but they can cope).

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Reform would probably benefit by branding themselves as UKIP 2. Not that they would do well these days, but at least people know what a "UKIp" is.

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The should call themselves "Hang the Paedos and Bring Back the Golliwog Party"

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As well as Mr Warburton's sex and drugs and russian cheques, further bad news for people named "Imran Khan" as the trial of the Wakefield MP continues, with a separate accusation of rape in Pakistan being brought up, and an admission of discussing pornography with minors. Why exactly this Tory intake is so rife with closet cases who seem to be driven into lunacy is a bit of a mystery - it's not like the seats they were selected for were no-hopers, like when Labour didn't bother screening anybody in 2017 and ended up with Onasayna and Jared.

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In this particular case their initial choice of candidate had to be dropped in a hurry after some of his internet history* became public knowledge, but all the same...

_{*And not even the worst bits!}

The easy way to solve that issue is to preemptively ban all Vote2012 users from public office, if not polite society.

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In this particular case their initial choice of candidate had to be dropped in a hurry after some of his internet history* became public knowledge, but all the same...

_{*And not even the worst bits!}

The easy way to solve that issue is to preemptively ban all Vote2012 users from public office, if not polite society.

Wait what ?

I think the poster of that is themselves an occasional contributor

I was wondering about the voteukt connection to the Wakefield controversy

The initial candidate goes by the name "Armchair Critic" and has trolled the forum for years (since at least the 2010 elections, when he was the Tory election agent for Morley and Outwood) with huge amounts of petty dickery. He was dropped two days before the filing deadline because the media found some of his comments.

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Just realised Honiton was the constituency of infamous "Sea Wolf" Thomas Cochrane, who was actually associated with the Radicals (even though he was hilariously corrupt).

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Do these Lib Dem victories portend anything enduring in all these safe Tory seats? Or are they just one time by-election protest votes and these seats will return to the fold in the GE? Would be interesting if we saw a similar phenomenon to what happened in Australia here.

Tiverton and North Shropshire look like normal Leave voting safe Tory seats. The LibDems are on track to do very well in highly educated Remain voting (or narrowly Leave seats) imo, I think they retain Chesham and Amersham. It does show the Tories have a very low floor to a minor party opposition.

Tiverton is also in an area with significant LD history, though. I think they could well retain this one, although the boundary changes will be a bit of a wildcard. I agree North Shropshire is the biggest stretch - but you never know, if the Tories are getting walloped nationwide they won't have the resources to spare to try to fight to win it back.

North Shropshire was unique due to the circumstances surrounding Paterson’s resignation, it’s not really that favourable to the Lib Dems - though farmers turning on the Tories doesn’t hurt them - whilst Tiverton isn’t that different from other rural West Country seats like Yeovil that they held for a long time, it’s just never had the local organisation in the past which is why they didn’t win it 1997-2010.

Yeovil proper has a more post Industrial feel than anything in Tiverton.

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If there is an election in Somerton, it's also worth noting that Lib Dems are particularly enthused in Somerset, winning the recent unitary election there.

As for the MP That Must Not Be Named, his constituency is borderline - was ancestrally a swing seat but boundary changes and demographics have shifted enough that I don't think Labour would have the votes to win outside of a total Tory turnout collapse.

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Maybe a Labour gain in Tamworth, should that vacancy happen?

Interesting history, but I feel it's the exact sort of seat that Labour still struggle in (and fwiw do not need for even a healthy majority) - it's the brummie equivalent of those thames estuary seats (like aforementioned Dartford) where you have a lot of families with working class origins but now work as senior sales reps or managers - NewLab made a pitch for these sort of people, but none of the faces of Labour are particularly appealing for them. It would probably be Upminster, but closer.

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Why would Burnham not just run for Leigh?

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According to the Times BoJo's resignation honours list contains eight serving Tory MPs, presumably including Adams and Dorries. This is accompanied with some constitutional debate about whether they are allowed to defer their peerages to a less ... awkward time (probably not, and it might need the King's assent).

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According to the Times BoJo's resignation honours list contains eight serving Tory MPs, presumably including Adams and Dorries. This is accompanied with some constitutional debate about whether they are allowed to defer their peerages to a less ... awkward time (probably not, and it might need the King's assent).

Who deals with constitutional debates?

In this specific case, it would be the King. Though this would create it's own problems: does Truss really want to alienate Charles straight out the gate with a Hobson's choice that would force the Crown into either: denying a request from PM and risk stretching his mandate as constitutional monarch or allow PM to get her way and therefore break convention, increase the power of the executive and further disturbing the peerage system.

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They'll be some demand for a West Suffolk by-election now that the Honourable Member is going into the jungle.

The current member for Mid Bedfordshire also did this and that wasn't the end of her career (and in the 2000s, the MP for Bethnal Green went into the Big Brother House, and he continued his ... Political career afterwards).

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BJ's resignation list has been published, with four sitting MP's:

Nadine Dorries - Mid Bedfordshire
Alok Sharma - Reading West
Alister Jack - Dumfries and Galloway
nigel Adams - Selby and Ainsty

Reading West would be certain Labour, Dumfries and Galloway would be certain SNP (given Labour used to have some strength here, I wonder if they could embarrassingly push Tories to third) and the other two would be in play on current polling.

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Cheryl Gillan, as well.