UK By-elections thread, 2021-

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Broadly I can identify 3 main reasons behind Labour's poor showing beyond the global trends.



1. Brexit has won: Whatever negative effects that may have come from brexist are masked by the pandemic meaning that a voter hasn't felt any direct negative effects from brexit given the vastly more disruptive pandemic.

2. Successful Vaccination: The UK's vaccination efforts have been far superior to that of the EU once again reinforcing things in favour of the Brexist Side. Furthermore the return to normal under the Tories has begun which has given the Tory Party a large popularity boost.

3. Labour Running on Nothing: Labour literary had no policies or ideas to run on beyond generic tory sleeze which the public is already tired off and see the tories as finally providing stability.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

how are y'all celeberating the start of the 1000 year tory reich in england ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

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.

Trying to spin the possible loss of a ultra-safe seat away is tripartisan tradition it seems.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

When will the results come out ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Rumour Mill is a mess.
https://twitter.com/rorythomasb/status/1405680502753869828
https://twitter.com/MattSingh_/status/1405678360081145859

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1405683970264776708
brb gonna make a virgin vs Chad Meme.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1405690225263775748
Massive

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Does anybody have a video of the decleration ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Does anybody have a video of the decleration ?

No, I think only a local radio station covered the election. Most of the media was noticeably absent.

nah, I found a video from elsewhere.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Does anybody have a video of the decleration ?

No, I think only a local radio station covered the election. Most of the media was noticeably absent.

nah, I found a video from elsewhere.

The guy doing the declaration sounds North American

Seems to be an american immigrant, studied at the university of Iowa and High School is Spencer,Iowa.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-anson-2b1673a7/?originalSubdomain=uk

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1405815393806163970
A bit overconfident

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1406947513857462276

The Conservatives’ developers’ charter would sell off and sell out our communities. Local people, not Tory Party donors, should decide what’s best for where they live.

Labour Party Embraced NIMBYSM it seems. Probably a pundit-brained take from the liberal democrats by-election win.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

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

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I realy do think Galloway is vastly overhyped, he offers nothing of any interest to people not even the most basic form of anti-lockdown populism. Muslim communities are deeply culturally conservative but frankly have transactional rather than ideological relation with labour parties, voting for them because of a combination of economic policy helping them, distate for xenophobia from conservative parties and better immigration policy. An LGBT candidate doesn't bother them much in that regard because it doesn't upset that transactional relationship(A non-muslim white canidate, A muslim LGBTQ candidate would go down horribly)
 
 I honestly think labour will hold this seat and it won't be as narrow as many commentaries are saying. This isn't a marginal labour seat, they have a good canidate while the tories have parachuted in a nobody. Furthermore the governments pushback of the full reopening as well as increasing delta cases is going to squeeze in their popularity.

Hancock's scandal is also the top of the news story which is unlikely to help the government.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

anyone got a good livestream ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1410773557232218114
Is this credible ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Should gone with my gut and placed the bet, only question now is if Galloway looses his deposit.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Labour apparently requested the second count.

oh no, that doesn't sound good for them.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1410816754423566341
The result is a ing meme, imagine telling people that Galloway would get 22% of the vote but labour would still win.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Galloway isn't accepting the election results and promising to sue to get it set aside.
https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1410817583108919296

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

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.

Galloway has zero appeal to any "working class whites" and is detested by the vast majority of the british electorate.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Galloway has every right to be furious.

This is not a good result for him. His previous iteration (well, one of many of them) would have easily won this seat. He was attempting the same message and innuendo as in Bradford West (some of which was identical) but it was less factional and sectarian and more conspiratorial. Remember he's spent most of the past year running the Alliance For Unity anti-SNP shtick which is nothing more than an online fringe. He was still seeking 'strokes' from that twitter audience. Outside of the Respect brand he's increasingly out of touch with the communities he used to appeal to.

I don't think he's furious. I think he's challenging the result so that he can stay in the limelight and continue to scam low info acolytes for his cause. He is there solely to monopolise attention and he succeeded for a while. I mean, the last election he stood in he was a footnote, and the last by-election even more so. This felt like Bradford West 2.0 in terms of exposure to his brand by the media.

He doesn't have a consistent brand anymore. That's his issue. He has a style and we certainly saw that, but there are too many plates spinning now in which he's trying to court both the Muslim vote in north of England towns at election time but a viscerally anti-Muslim, reactionary online right that generates his clicks and likes, anti-SNP unionist idpol folks and the Greenwaldian 'left' when it's not election time.

It can't win him elections. Which is what he really wants.

I doubt he was expecting it though. He achieved his primary goal, which was boosting his brand. Winning would have been an added bonus. Surely even an ego like his realised this was an uphill battle.

I mean his life is pretty sad, travelling from constituency to constituency spreading hatred and rumour mongering to various crowds. Consorting with anti-social cranks ranging from communists to Michael Gove. Haviing people steadily pay less attention to him and loosing the limelight he used to have.

He could comofortably retire on an MP's pension but countinued to publicaly humiliate himself because of his ego.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Would hastily remind everyone that British criminal law does extend to internet discussions and that posting anything that could be argued to prejudice a trial is not a good idea

---

Anyway, the Labour Party is pretty well organised in Wakefield district, though it must be admitted that this is truer of the outlying parts than the city itself. It's also one of those places where Labour polled a lot better in the May elections than at the last GE, though, again, particularly outside the city.

If does become a Labour Gain do you think that will mostly end talk about getting rid of Keir Starmer ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

: this is the land of the Middle Manager not the Higher Professional.

what's the difference ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Famously/infamously this was her candidate application form, note no. 5:

To be fair to her, candidates were encouraged to put “Any” down at that point because there were so many vacancies unfilled due to the election being on short notice. It was why you ended up with so many random candidates on the last minute short lists with no connection to the seats.

Why is that ? why do so few people want to run for office ?