UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I think a lot of people need a holiday.

Didn’t they just have one on Monday? Not that I could use one on this side of the pond though.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

For reference, Chesham and Amersham voted 55% Remain - a very high figure for non-urban England - on an enormous 83% turnout, estimated highest in the country.

Despite this, it voted over 55% Tory in 2019, with the LDs in second, and over 60% in 2017. Indeed, it has never voted less than 50% Tory since its creation in February 1974; even 1997 when it was one of about ten seats to give Major an absolute majority. The only one in the country with that record I should imagine. So the Home Counties seat par excellence.

It was, incidentally, held by Sir Ian Gilmour.

Any chance this swings to the Lib Dems? I would guess it would’ve been more likely pre-2019, when they were polling better nationally.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Attention recently has majored on B&S, but before that we have C&A this week - and the increasingly voluble whispers from there is that the Tories fear it could be too close for comfort. If not worse.

https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1404885017445081088?ref_src=twsrc%5Et...

Obvious internal polling caveats aside, this could be scary for the stories even if they win, as noted. It was a 55% remain according to calculations. Labour and Greens might have to be careful about their deposits (especially the Greens, I think).

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

There is also a big local issue of the sort that lends itself quite nicely to a one-off kick against the government from people who basically support it in broad terms. But, again, this is not a prediction.

What is the big local issue?

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I’m expecting a narrow Tory win... it will be interesting to see how the Green vote does, as it could easily be high enough to stop the Lib Dem’s from winning

My completely BS guess is that it will be within 3% either way, but I’m tilting Tory.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

There's a case to be made that in an alternate 2019, this is the sort of result that could have happened in a wealthy, west of London leaning seat that was estimated at 55% Remain. That it didn't was of course due to a myriad of different reasons that in the end, had little to do with the Lib Dems. Indeed, the seat itself despite the Lib Dems having a bit of sh-t year, did see their vote rebound to what they had been previously getting (before 2015) since the days of the Alliance. So seats like these are fertile grounds for Lib Dem by-election wins and the sorts of seats that become fertile grounds for Lib Dem by-election wins is very different bag than it was a decade or more ago.

The seat does strike me as one that the Lib Dems should target in a general election, but the biggest hurdle they face is incumbency.

Also, for a bit of fun: If you want really amusing results, here’s what happens when you apply the swings to Batley and Spen:

Lib Dems 35.1%
Labour 31.5%
Tories 16.1%
Loonies (not just the Monster Raving variety) 17.6%
Greens -0.3%

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

We could be in for a special treat later this year:

https://twitter.com/electionmapsuk/status/1407016831064416264?s=21

A Northern Irish Westminster By-Election in Lagan Valley. I don’t see it as being as competitive as some people are suggesting though. But you never know!

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

We could be in for a special treat later this year:

https://twitter.com/electionmapsuk/status/1407016831064416264?s=21

A Northern Irish Westminster By-Election in Lagan Valley. I don’t see it as being as competitive as some people are suggesting though. But you never know!

Alliance surged there last time, but hard to see them getting to the 35-40% they'd need to actually win the seat. Would be an immediate test of whether Donaldson could rescue the DUP's fortunes, though; right now, I'd think the DUP might be in danger of losing this seat to the UUP in a by-election if it somehow took place while Poots was still leader.

Incidentally, in the last election there won by a non-DUP candidate, the non-DUP candidate was UUP incumbent... Jeffrey Donaldson. And the losing DUP candidate was none other than Edwin Poots.

Oh, that’s good. I would say that the TUV could throw a wrench in here if they wanted to, but I doubt they will.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Gonna go bold and say Galloway loses his deposit. But that’s mostly to be contrarian/hopeful. Tbh, I see a narrow Tory victory. Sources: my left and right cheeks.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Declared Results:

Labour: 13296
Conservatives: 12973
Galloway: 8264
LD: 1254

Others: 1908

Lab hold

Glad to have been wrong about Labour. Sad that Galloway hit over 20%

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I would suspect and hope that the Lib Dems, Greens, and Labour would not run a candidate, similar to how the Tories, Greens, UKIP, and Lib Dems didn’t run a candidate after Jo Cox’s murder.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Beautiful.

You hate to see it. But more than that, you love to see it.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

It's always so funny to me what high-tension and high-stakes affairs British by-elections are, even if the stakes mostly tend to evaporate by the next GE. Most House special elections in the US are snoozers unless the seat was competitive to begin with (a few special cases like Conor Lamb aside), whereas with British by-elections there are constant wild swings, hilarious interpersonal drama and meme-tier campaigning chops, and often, because of the lack of residency requirements, the same revolving door of wackos eccentrics running for various minor parties over and over again up and down the island. The process is always comedy gold even when the actual result doesn't change much about the UK's political landscape.

I think that a lot of it comes down to the central counting and the candidates all being there when it’s called. It’s why we have pictures of “Elmo” and Count Binface with Boris. Then you get the Monster Raving Loony Party that runs in basically every by-election and doesn’t always come in last. That sort of thing is prime meme fodder.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

The writ for the Southend West by-election caused by the murder of Sir David Amess was moved yesterday and the by-election will be on 3 February.  Nominations close on Tuesday.

We know that Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens and Reform UK aren't contesting this, but UKIP have announced a candidate, as have some new outfit called the "English Constitution Party", and far right activist Jayda Fransen is also supposedly standing.

No doubt about the winner of this one.

Something to look for is turnout - the lowest previous figure for a peacetime UK byelection was 18% at Manchester Central in 2012, if a lot of browned off Tory voters stay at home that record could go.

To be honest I don't think there'll be much point in trying to take anything from the result of this unless something very strange happens.  It's just not a normal by-election.

Biggest question would be whether anyone other than the Tories keeps their deposit.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I guess I’d vote for Firth here. Mostly to deny the far right idiots their deposits.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I mean I get why but it's disturbing that literally every non-Tory candidate is a far-right asshole.

Even the Psych guy?

Well, look at it this way:  they're each so much into individual freedom and liberty, they feel they're invididually viable enough to be elected.  Like, the ballot-box equivalent of serial Tinder left-swipees...

One of his few campaign planks is to appoint Tommy Robinson to the House of Lords.

Oh, okay; just looked him up.  More lower-case monster raving loony than upper-case...

Notably, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party didn’t stand in Batley and Spen in 2016 either.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

There's a likely by-election in Lagan Valley, caused by the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson needing to get himself into the Northern Ireland Assembly in the forthcoming election (this May) if he's going to become First Minister.

Briefly, it looked like this wasn't going to happen after all, because the Government announced a plan to remove the ban on double jobbing between Westminster and Stormont in certain restricted circumstances which looked rather specifically defined to allow Donaldson to remain an MP until the next Westminster election.  But now this plan, which went down pretty badly with everybody other than the DUP and some Tories, has been withdrawn, so the by-election is back on again.

This one looks to be a snoozefest based on past results, unless I’m missing something.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I'm curious to know how people think the Southend West election to day would go if the other parties hadn't left it uncontested.

You can wonder the same about Batley and Spen in 2016 - at a time when Labour were struggling in the polls rather like the Tories are currently.

But the benchmarks from that one - turnout of 25%, winner getting 85% - remain relevant here IMO. Even if UKIP weren't standing then and are now.

Regarding UKIP, they are standing, but Reform UK isn’t standing this time. I think RefUK is probably the more relevant comparison here.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Slightly better both turnout and Tory share-wise than I had thought might be the case.

But the number of spoiled ballots shows even a token fringe left candidate would very likely have come second (and taken the winning percentage down a few points)

Such a candidate probably would’ve kept their deposit.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

If we look at English by-elections (and excluding Southend West) we have the following average vote share changes

Conservative: -10.7%
Labour -4.4%
Lib Dem +11.4%

These elections also include Hartlepool (the first by-election; a Conservative gain) and Batley and Spen (intervention).

Without Hartlepool (a reverse intervention), the Tory vote drops on average by 15.5

If we look at the same picture in the 1992-1997 Parliament, but only during the years Blair was leader of the Labour Party, the Tory share dropped by 17.7 points on average (Labour up 13.9, Lib Dems down 2.0). These were contests on more favourable seats for Labour than the current crops of seats up for election.

So the Tory share is as down by almost as much as it was during the period in which they were heading for the exit.

The Lib Dem gains now are even more impressive given that in most seats they are recovering from relative historic lows for a third party.

Though is that Lib Dem average that meaningful? In three out of elections they got more than 45% of the vote, in the remaining five they couldn't break 4%. It's a pattern of really striking advances where they're the most plausible anti-Tory option and absolutely nothing where they aren't.

I presume that as long as strategic voting is all the rage, you'll see more and more of that.

It would be really interesting if we got a by-election in a seat where the 2019 result was something like Con 45 Lab 25 LD 23 where the LDs are in third but with a strong base and requiring a much lower swing than their recent gains and Labour is in second and isn't completely out of contention but far enough back that a straight Con->Lab flip is unlikely.

It's worth noticing that in the 1992-1997 by-elections Labour gained a lot more than they are now, especially in straight Con-Lab fights.

Perhaps a Cornwall constituency or some seat in Wimbledon might fit the bill here?

Another wall for Labour and the Lib Dems to crush haha.

This is where the strategic voting attempts that we’ve seen could fall apart. I think that Rees-Mogg’s seat is one of those where Labour and Lib Dems are both projected in the mid-20s and he’s projected  in the mid-30s.

On a related note, I know Labour has a policy of running people everywhere, but it would be nice if they could coordinate with the Greens, Lib Dems, and maybe even Plaid for Labour to only run paper candidates in some seats where Labour doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but their 10% could help another anti-Tory party. Basically what we saw in 2019, but maybe something that could actually have results if it happened.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

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

Man, they’re gonna get Sharma out of the HoC one way or another haha

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Will Hope break 1% since there’s only one other frivolous candidate in the race?

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Apparently, the writ will be moved for two by-elections tomorrow - so they should be up in the next four weeks. But Dorries hasn’t formally resigned yet?
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1668669720604684316

(And regarding the previous comment - I hear the weather in Mongolia is lovely at this time of year)*

_{* If it’s not him, then I’ve officially lost track of MP scandals - there’s just too many right now.}

Boris probably doesn’t want to give up being Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Love when people discover how insane by elections can be

And it really hits them when all the candidates are on stage together for the results. I know they do it in the generals too, but that gets lost in the commotion of 650 seats.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

How long until somebody uses the words 'Long Corbyn' to explain this by-election defeat?

At only 101 votes, this Corbyn came up pretty short.