UK Parliamentary by-elections, 2015 onwards (also devolved legislatures)

[YL]

I believe Neath Port Talbot was one of the last places where they still had local council representation. Like how the continuity Liberals have or had lingering representation in a few spots (Wyre Forest and Liverpool, I believe, and maybe one or two other hotspots).

Yes, also the Bridlington wards of the East Riding for the SDP for a long time.  However, although the organisation is continuous, I'm not sure there's much real continuity between those small council groups and the current Brexity SDP.  One of the first UKIP figures to join the SDP was Steve Winstone, who was UKIP candidate for Sheffield South East in 2015 and in the Sheffield Brightside & Hillsborough by-election, but then stood for the SDP in Sheffield Hallam in 2017.  I encountered him at a hustings for Hallam in 2015 (he was standing in for the Hallam UKIP candidate) and would have to say that he came across as entirely typical UKIP.

The continuity Liberals generally strike me as an alternative for people who have fallen out with the Lib Dems for some reason.  Like the SDP, they are pro-Brexit, but they don't have the ex-UKIP influence.  Their most prominent figure is a Liverpool councillor called Steve Radford, who has a considerable personal vote in his ward (Tuebrook & Stoneycroft) and came second in Liverpool West Derby in both the 1997 and 2001 general elections.  He actually stood for the European Parliament as part of an otherwise hard left list called No2EU.  The other place where they have several councillors is around Pickering in North Yorkshire (Ryedale district); they also have a councillor in Peterborough so perhaps will stand if/when there's a by-election there.

Is the Renew candidate like a de facto TIG candidate?

Their political positioning is similar, but I'm not aware of any endorsements (either way round).

[YL]

Newport West is tomorrow.  Andrew Teale's preview is here.

There doesn't seem to be much chatter about anyone other than Labour winning.  That ought to be the case, given that it's usually a Labour seat and they're in opposition, but UK politics is so chaotic at the moment that there could have been.  So my impression is that an upset is not expected.

For what it's worth, Labour are currently 10 or 12 to 1 on with most bookmakers, and UKIP, in spite of their ghastly candidate, are actually second favourites, which I suspect isn't based on intelligence from the campaign.

[YL]

Extremely boring result - poor results for the big two, none of the billion smaller and minor parties gaining serious traction despite that, obvious impact of the bad weather on turnout, obvious impact of the popular deceased incumbent not being on the ballot paper.

Yes, it struck me as managing to be a rather disappointing result for everybody.  Big two both down, fairly substantially, but none of the others really making a breakthrough.

On to Peterborough, I suspect.  I fear the Tories may win that back.

[YL]

But it was still a byelection, where it is easier for parties outside the "big two" to gain support.

Especially given their absolutely gushing write-up in the Graun, it was an underwhelming vote for Renew actually.

I don't really get the point of Renew.  If I'm looking for an explicitly pro-EU party to vote for (and I might be, especially if there are EU elections) then why would I vote for them ahead of the Lib Dems or Greens?  It's not as if their positioning on other stuff is particularly distinctive.

They did OK for a small party, but given how much effort they put in to lose their deposit isn't very impressive.  At least they did better than the SDP, who made a lot of noise on Twitter for a pretty derisory vote.

[YL]

I think the referendum promise was more to do with keeping the Tory party together and stopping their own bleeding to UKIP than to do with getting Labour votes.

It summed up Cameron: short termist pandering with no thought to the consequences.

[YL]

The recall petition in Peterborough has succeeded, easily.

Polling day likely to be 6 June.

It got 27%!  (It needed 10%.)  I think the expectation must now be that Brecon & Radnorshire will succeed as well, though as the incumbent MP's party hasn't abandoned him there it's not likely to be as high as that.

I'm sure the voters of Peterborough will be delighted that George Galloway has announced his candidacy on Twitter.

[YL]

15 candidates for Peterborough

Paul Bristow (Con)
Lisa Forbes (Lab)
Stephen Goldspink (English Democrats)
Mike Greene (The Brexit Party)
Howling Laud Hope (OMRLP)
Pierre Kirk (UK European Union Party)
Andrew Moore (no description)
Patrick O'Flynn (SDP)
Dick Rodgers (The Common Good)
Tom Rogers (Christian People's Alliance)
Beki Sellick (Lib Dem)
Bobby Elmo Smith (no description)
Peter Ward (Renew)
Joseph Wells (Green)
John Whitby (UKIP)

There is no ChUK-TIG candidate.  There were reports that they (rather at the last minute, it would seem) approached the Lib Dems and Greens with an offer that the three parties should support an independent pro-Remain candidate, but that it fell through.

The Common Good is a micro-party who have stood a few times, always with the same candidate.  His best result is 428 votes in the 2005 general election in Birmingham Northfield.  His description this time is "Common Good: Remain In The EU".

The UK European Union Party's purpose is obvious.

I assume "Bobby Elmo Smith" is the same person (a fathers' rights activist) who has stood under the name Bobby Smith for the "Give Me Back Elmo Party" in the past and got three votes standing against Theresa May in Maidenhead in 2017.

[YL]

The Peterborough by-election will be later today (UK time). What time do the polls close?

10pm UK time.

I was thinking of trying to write a preview, explaining the weird political history from the days of the Soke of Peterborough to Helen Clark and Stewart Jackson, but Andrew Teale has done one, so I don't need to.

BTW that University Challenge episode with the MPs team captained by Helen Clark was hilarious.

[YL]

I think it will be close between Labour and the Brexit Party, but it is hard to guess how much patterns from the Euro elections will carry over.  I will be surprised if anyone else is close; it is not fertile ground for the Lib Dems or Greens, and I expect the Tories to lose a lot of their 2017 vote share to the Brexit Party.

[YL]

Phew.

Labour hold by 683.

[YL]

I make it
Lab 10,484 (30.91%)
Brexit Party 9801 (28.89%)
Con 7,243 (21.35%)
LD 4,159 (12.26%)
Green 1,035 (3.05%)
UKIP 400 (1.18%)
CPA 162 (0.48%)
Eng Dem 153 (0.45%)
SDP 135 (0.40%)
OMRLP 112 (0.33%)
Moore 101 (0.30%)
Common Good 60 (0.18%)
Renew 45 (0.13%)
UKEUP 25 (0.07%)
Elmo 5 (0.01%)

[YL]

Tories on 20% is better than I expected tbh.

Yes, they held up a little better than I expected, with the Brexit Party correspondingly doing a little worse: I was expecting them to be in the low 30s.

[YL]

On the "everyone else" point, the full might of Change UK was placed behind the Renew candidate here.

They got 45 votes.

I know an announcement was made that they were supporting Renew, but did they actually campaign for them in any meaningful sense?  Indeed, did anyone campaign for Renew in any meaningful sense?

(Actually, I see on their website that they had a "Peterborough Victory Fund" (sic).  So it looks like they did try something...)

[YL]

If there's a by-election in Brecon & Radnor the LibDems won't campaign on Brexit. They'll campaign on how the Tory incumbent is a crook and how you should vote for that nice farmer/farmers wife/daughter they're running who is extremely local and who probably knows your father/mother/daughter/son.

I wonder whether the Tories will stick with Davies if there's a by-election.  My suspicion is that they've stuck with him so far because of the parliamentary arithmetic as much as anything.

I think the recall is going to succeed; comparing the constituency and the case with Peterborough and North Antrim suggests that it should be somewhere in between, and the former passed easily while the latter only narrowly failed.  Also, the Lib Dems seem pretty confident from what I can tell, though it's illegal to actually publish any numbers.

I think the earliest a by-election could be held would be Thursday 25 July.  That would be interesting; it'd be three days after the result of the Tory leadership election is announced.  However, I suspect that if the recall does succeed then the Tories may well sit on it for a bit and the by-election won't be until the autumn, especially if they decide to change candidate.  If the new leader ends up having to call a General Election the by-election may never happen.

[YL]

Recall elections are a thing in the UK? How come I've never heard of them before?

Because they've only just been introduced: Peterborough was the first.

They're only available where the MP has been sent to prison (for less than a year, as a longer sentence would lead to an automatic exclusion from the Commons), convicted of an expenses-related offence (which is the Brecon & Radnorshire trigger) or been given a lengthy suspension from the Commons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015

[YL]

The Brecon & Radnorshire recall petition has passed, with 10,005 signatures (19%; the requirement is 10%).  So Chris Davies loses his seat, and there will be a by-election (well, unless it's overtaken by a General Election).  He can stand again; we'll see whether the local Tories want him to.

[YL]

The writ has just been moved for Brecon & Radnorshire.  It will be held on 1 August, the first August Westminster by-election since the second Fermanagh & South Tyrone by-election in 1981.

The Tories are sticking with Chris Davies.

[YL]

Six candidates for Brecon & Radnorshire

Chris Davies (Con)
Tomos Glyndwr Davies (Lab)
Jane Dodds (LD)
Des Parkinson (Brexit Party)
Liz Phillips (UKIP)
Lady Lily The Pink (OMRLP)

Perhaps the Labour candidate is going after the Plaid vote with that middle name?

[YL]

Jared O'Mara is thinking of resigning after the summer recess, according to the Sheffield Star.

The statement says he will resign once the recess is over, so that suggests a Sheffield Hallam by-election in early October.  (I don't think it can happen before then.) It may be overtaken by a General Election as happened in Manchester Gorton, but if it doesn't I expect an easy Lib Dem gain.  I am leaning towards voting for them myself.

[YL]

If Labour can convince Oliver Coppard to stand they might be in with a chance, otherwise it would probably be a pretty easy gain for the Lib Dems

Coppard - who is Jewish - does not have a great relationship with Hallam CLP at present and does not have a high opinion of the national leadership. On a purely human level, he now has a worthwhile job that he seems to find satisfying, so...

He's said he doesn't want to stand at the moment, which is a shame; he was a very good candidate in 2015 and while that doesn't necessarily mean he'd have been a good MP I think he would have been.  Anyway, both Labour and the Lib Dems have candidates selected so there isn't much point speculating.  The Lib Dems' is Laura Gordon and Labour's is Olivia Blake, a leading figure on Sheffield City Council and councillor for Walkley (in Central constituency).

(I first typed "leafing figure" there, which would have been an amusing typo in context.  And that might indicate a further problem for Labour beyond Br*x*t, anti-Semitism and the 2017 candidate selection.)

[YL]

Running part of the Machine in this part of the city is... courageous.

The local CLP membership must have seen something good in her, one charitably presumes.

(and of course they never picked O'Mara, as I have seen some inaccurately assert)

I'm not aware of anything particularly against Blake herself, but I expect her position on the Council to be used against her.  You are right about O'Mara of course; that's down to the national Labour party rushing the selections in seats they didn't think were winnable (which given expectations at the time of selection meant pretty much everywhere not already held).  Lessons do appear to have been learned; lots of selections have already happened.

[YL]

LD gain.  Figures apparently

Con 12,401
Lab 1,680
LD 13,826
Brexit 3,331
UKIP 242
Loony 334

The figures were mostly only read out in Welsh...

[YL]

Does anybody know which Tories in particular are considering defecting to the Lib Dems after this result? I remember hearing 5 or 6 were.

Rumoured defections don't have a great track record, but the names which keep coming up are Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) and Phillip Lee (Bracknell).

Apparently Frank Field, the ex-Labour Independent MP for Birkenhead, is making a statement later today, but he's a Brexiteer so most unlikely to be joining the Lib Dems.

[YL]

From a Labour point of view I would be fairly relaxed about this.  Labour supporters voting Lib Dem in seats Labour aren't going to win but the Lib Dems might (and Brecon & Radnorshire, whatever its history back when it included Brynmawr, clearly came into that category) does not seem something that should be high up on the party's list of concerns.  Indeed, from my point of view (which admittedly is more of an anti-Tory one than any sort of tribal Labour one) it is basically a good thing.

I was hoping the Lib Dems would win a bit more comfortably, though.

[YL]

Quite the contrary, it's a great thing.
An administrative presence is one of the best brakes to extinction in minority languages.

It's reminiscent of pope Ratzinger announcing his resignation in Latin.

I don't object to official bilingualism (though it does need to be defined in a way that is less prone to grifting and gatekeeping) and so have no issue with the result also being read out in Welsh. But I do object to whatever mentality meant that the result in a constituency that is - outside of the Upper Swansea Valley, which differs in this respect as in so many others - essentially exclusively Anglophone, was not read out in a language that the overwhelming majority of electors in that constituency can actually understand. It isn't about the language (dw i'n siarad tipyn bach Cymraeg), but about fetishising it as a national symbol. In large parts of the country this is exclusivist.

Was it deliberate, though?  I wondered whether he was just concentrating so much on getting the Welsh numbers right that he forgot to read them out in English.  Everything in the declaration except for the Tory, Labour, Lib Dem and Brexit Party votes (i.e. including the UKIP and Loony votes) was read out in both languages.

Speaking of the Upper Swansea Valley, do you know why that part of Breconshire was included in Powys in 1974 when other areas atypical of the county such as Brynmawr weren't?