UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Boobs]

How likely is a Wakefield by-election?

[Boobs]

How likely is a Wakefield by-election?

Purely legally, it depends on the conviction and sentence - if the sentence is over a year (which seems plausible here) the MP is automatically disqualified from the House of Commons.

So it’s more of a question of when, not if?

On paper this seems like it would be a very interesting by-election (although the ones we’ve had so far have not lacked for excitement, either) given its marginal history. I’m not too keen on the local scandal helping Labour all too much considering the party’s general dysfunction and especially in Yorks. And given that Khan would not be standing in the by-election… Even though we expect the incumbent party to perform worse due to scandal (partially in Hartlepool, although I wouldn’t attribute much of Labour’s loss due to that), I’m thinking about the rather underwhelming Lib Dem win in Brecon & Radnorshire, and that had Davies running again…

[Boobs]

Onto Shropshire. Imagine that’ll get more attention by the nature of how that vacancy came to be, although I’m not certain that the end result would be much different than Bexley.

[Boobs]

Heard there's a potential for a Winchester by-election? For some vaguely sleaze-related reason, paid advocacy that Brine did/is doing. Not sure if it's actually going to happen, but if it would, seems like a Lib Dem slam dunk (and therefore potentially just wish casting on their behalf.)

[Boobs]

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1471104297991610372?s=20

Something in the water in old Shropshire, huh... Could be quite the doable lift for Labour if Tories' troubles continue.

[Boobs]

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  But now this plan, which went down pretty badly with everybody other than the DUP and some Tories, has been withdrawn, so the by-election is back on again.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.

A “perfect storm” scenario where Alliance receives the tacit support of the few nationalists in the seat, combined with UUP (and possibly TUV, both of which has been rising in Stormont polls at the expense of DUP) challenging DUP could result in a narrow flip.

This seat did have the worst DUP 2019 performance relative to 2017, with Alliance’s gain (17.7%) being greater than DUP’s loss (16.8%). Went from a 19k majority to just 6k, although I imagine NI by-election dynamics being different from the rest of the UK’s.

[Boobs]

The Guardian is hyping up a by-election in Surrey Heath pending rumors of a Gove resignation.

[Boobs]

Commons has voted (without a division) to suspend Peter Bone for six weeks.

Bone won up to as much as 62% of the vote in 2019, with Labour less than half that. So a long way to come back from.

However, the seat has an 18k Tory majority - smaller than Tamworth (19.6k), Mid Beds (24.6k), Somerton (19.2k), Selby (20.1k). Clear two-way Labour-Conservative race - the Lib Dems rarely even keep their deposit there these days.

Between here and the likely Labour romp in Blackpool, are the Lib Dems really going to sit out a set of by-elections?