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

[Silent Hunter]

Rumours are true

[Blair]

A fun return to labours internal war.

Ofc the right will argue the NEC will stack the shortlist with Corbynites, but the most likely result is that the trade unions will throw their weight behind a councillor.

However parliamentary selections are filled with rumour/petty arguments/factional panics. Could easily be someone relatively unknown.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's also the added complication that most members at selection meetings don't base their decisions off factional alignment as a rule...

[Blair]

There's also the added complication that most members at selection meetings don't base their decisions off factional alignment as a rule...

Lewisham East has been hailed by a lot of people in Labour First as being the last bastion of the Labour Right in South London, so it's the best chance to see just how much organisational strength they have. (but yes I agree it's not as straight forward as right v left)

FWIW, the days are gone in Labour of candidates being openly Corbynsceptic. From the internal elections I've seen since last summer, you seen a lot of language about being a 'Broad church' and 'supporting the single market to let us be anti-austerity'.

The ideal candidate would have been Damien Egan; but he's just became mayor of Lewisham.

Al, what are the rules about AWS for by-elections?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Interestingly, Dan Jarvis doesn't seem to be resigning as MP, despite being elected as Sheffield regional mayor.

[Blair]

Interestingly, Dan Jarvis doesn't seem to be resigning as MP, despite being elected as Sheffield regional mayor.

The NEC tried to pass a rule that would have forced him to resign as an MP (or withdraw) but virtually all of the Labour MPs/Councillors in the region kicked up a fuss, and Jarvis was allowed to remain an MP.

[MaxQue]

Interestingly, Dan Jarvis doesn't seem to be resigning as MP, despite being elected as Sheffield regional mayor.

The NEC tried to pass a rule that would have forced him to resign as an MP (or withdraw) but virtually all of the Labour MPs/Councillors in the region kicked up a fuss, and Jarvis was allowed to remain an MP.

It's more than the NEC tried to apply the rule that bans having two paid elective jobs (councillors are not paid, they have allowances according to law), but it appears Sheffield regional mayor isn't paid and so the rule doesn't apply.

[doktorb]

It's been a long time since I was on this forum, good to see it's still active.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Al, what are the rules about AWS for by-elections?

Shortlisting for by-elections is entirely an NEC matter.

[Blair]

I read that the shortlist will be done by next week; so everything is moving quite quickly.

Everyone and their dog seems to be running; most likely because most people where hoping to stand in Lewisham West in 2020 when Jim stepped down (then 2017 happened).

As long as Claudia Webbe doesn’t get picked, I’ll be happy. I know some of the people standing and regardless of their various views on JC they’re all perfectly decent people.

Will be interesting to see how fair the shortlist is.

[parochial boy]

Out of curiosity, what makes a particular CLP more "left" or "right" wing traditionally? I wouldn't have thought the kind of person joining the party would vary much from one constituency to another.

Is it just down to the profile of who is an active member / the clique in charge?

[Blair]

Out of curiosity, what makes a particular CLP more "left" or "right" wing traditionally? I wouldn't have thought the kind of person joining the party would vary much from one constituency to another.

Is it just down to the profile of who is an active member / the clique in charge?

From personal experience, yes to the second question.

As with all Labour politics, there's a lot of variation. Some 'right' wing CLP's in the North-East, and Midlands are much more from the old Right, and would be dominated by 5-10 people who've been there for years. These are the CLP's who nominated Andy Burnham in 2015, and then supported Corbyn.

On the other hand some of the London CLPs (like mine) tended to be dominated by Cllrs, MPs and the people who'd stayed in Labour throughout the last government, so they tended to be on the 'modernising right'.

The big thing you have to remember is that before 2015 even the biggest CLPs had only 400-500 members; under Corbyn some have doubled, or tripled. When you have such volatile membership changes (including old members rejoining) it's hard to work out the nature of CLPs.

 

[Blair]

Phyll Opuki-Gyimah, the current frontrunner drops out. She founded black Pride in the UK, and at least seemed very different (as a black working class Lesbian) to the usual crop of MPs. Wouldn't have minded her as an MP.

She was also backed by UNITE the union (who have a huge influence over both the NEC, and the leadership) so will be interesting to see what happens.

https://twitter.com/MsLadyPhyll/status/995638463897710592

[Blair]

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/corbyn-ally-claudia-webbe-favourite-for-lewisham-east-by-election-as-labour-drafts-its-first-ever-all-women-all-bame-shortlist_uk_5af9b396e4b09a94524ac7ea?fvn

Shortlist announced. They're all BAME women, and three of them are Councillors in Lewisham. The biggest surprise is that Claudia Webbe has been nominated; she's a Corbynite member of the NEC, with some questionable views.

All comes down to the selection meeting on Saturday (where we have no idea what will happen).

[Blair]

I'm aware this appeals to at best about 5 people but serious, and hilarious news from the Selection Meeting.

One of the front-runners, and Momentum backed Sakina Shiekh has allegedly been involved in another political party which ran candidates against Labour in 2016. Would mean that she should have been barred from standing (Labour have the very draconian rules about supporting other parties).

https://twitter.com/e_casalicchio/status/997773908697845760

Edit: And she's gone. Been formally kicked off the shortlist by Jim Kennedy.

Edit 2: She's back on the shortlist after a U-Turn by the NEC. God this is a farce.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Daby wins very comfortably on the first ballot. Shiekh second - embarrassingly poor totals for Webbe.

[Blair]

Now Labour have decided their candidate the only interest will be whether Labour get between a 10 or 20K majority (which all depends on turnout). I'll probably do some campaigning if I'm back home in time.

Usual chatter within Labour Twitter saying it's a great victory for Moderates (I wouldn't say great) and that it shows the schisms between Unite and Momentum (which will always exist in internal selections). Just like how Corbynsceptics have now united since 2015, the party's left will still unite when the important fights come up, such as NEC elections, Leadership contests etc etc.

The selection served as a rather apt metaphor for everything wrong with Labour- forcing members to spend 4+ hours in a town hall arguing about the rule book.

Daby wins very comfortably on the first ballot. Shiekh second - embarrassingly poor totals for Webbe.

I've seen some people say that both UNITE and momentum picked rather weak candidates- Webbe had no links to the CLP (or even South London) and had links to Livingstone, whilst Shiekh only became a Councillor last week.

Ofc the problem is that the vast majority of Labour Councillors are from the old cohort, so it's not as if there was a wealth of left-wing candidates to pick from.
 

[YL]

Polling day for Lewisham East is 14 June.  There are 14 candidates:

Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah (Green)
Ross Archer (Conservative)
Charles Carey (no description)
Janet Daby (Labour)
Massimo Dimambro (Democrats & Veterans)
Sean Finch (Libertarian)
Patrick Gray (Radical Party)
Thomas Hall (Young People's Party)
Howling Laud Hope (OMRLP)
David Kurten (UKIP)
Maureen Martin (Christian People's Alliance)
Mandu Reid (Women's Equality)
Lucy Salek (Liberal Democrat)
Anne Marie Waters (For Britain)

Democrats & Veterans is a UKIP splinter, led by former UKIP leadership candidate John Rees-Evans of "gay donkey tried to rape my horse" fame.  I presume the donkey carrying the Union Flag in their logo is not intended as a reference to this incident.  For Britain is also a UKIP splinter, the candidate being their leader, who is also a former UKIP leadership candidate.

The Young People's Party stood in by-elections in Croydon North (63 votes and last place) and Corby (39 votes) in 2012.  They'v also had a handful of General Election candidates; their candidate this time stood in Epping Forest in 2017 and got 110 votes, which is a record for the party...

I don't remember seeing the Radical Party before.  They have a rather verbose website.

[Blair]

At least the fascist vote is split this time

[Sestak]

This is Safe LAB, right?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is Safe LAB, right?

Massive majority - 45pts - last year and majority never lower than 15pts since the early 90s, so, yeah. Multiethnic working class residential constituency, mixture of council estates (big ones) and once quite smart but now pretty downscale terraces. Blackheath is quite middle class, but is just one ward. Traditional stronghold as well: most of the seat had continuous Labour representation - in the earlier part of the period the MP was Herbert Morrison - 1945-83.

[YL]

This is Safe LAB, right?

Massive majority - 45pts - last year and majority never lower than 15pts since the early 90s, so, yeah. Multiethnic working class residential constituency, mixture of council estates (big ones) and once quite smart but now pretty downscale terraces. Blackheath is quite middle class, but is just one ward. Traditional stronghold as well: most of the seat had continuous Labour representation - in the earlier part of the period the MP was Herbert Morrison - 1945-83.

... though it did vote Tory in 1983 and 1987, on slightly different boundaries.  Like a lot of London seats it swung further to the Tories in 1987 after the initial gain in 1983.  I think, though, that it's one of those cases where the 1983 and 1987 results seem like they're from a different world.  (See also Nottingham.)

Incidentally, in 1983 the SDP candidate was one Polly Toynbee.

[Tintrlvr]

This is Safe LAB, right?

Massive majority - 45pts - last year and majority never lower than 15pts since the early 90s, so, yeah. Multiethnic working class residential constituency, mixture of council estates (big ones) and once quite smart but now pretty downscale terraces. Blackheath is quite middle class, but is just one ward. Traditional stronghold as well: most of the seat had continuous Labour representation - in the earlier part of the period the MP was Herbert Morrison - 1945-83.

... though it did vote Tory in 1983 and 1987, on slightly different boundaries.  Like a lot of London seats it swung further to the Tories in 1987 after the initial gain in 1983.  I think, though, that it's one of those cases where the 1983 and 1987 results seem like they're from a different world.  (See also Nottingham.)

Incidentally, in 1983 the SDP candidate was one Polly Toynbee.

Obviously absolutely 0% chance of the Tories winning now. Would give maybe a combined 2% chance to the LDs and the Greens, 98% chance to Labour, but even that might be generous to the LDs and Greens. If the by-election were happening in the mid-aughts, it would have been a prime LD by-election target, which is the only reason to have some pause about 100% certainty.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

... though it did vote Tory in 1983 and 1987, on slightly different boundaries.  Like a lot of London seats it swung further to the Tories in 1987 after the initial gain in 1983.  I think, though, that it's one of those cases where the 1983 and 1987 results seem like they're from a different world.  (See also Nottingham.)

Indeed. But the important thing - true also of Nottingham - is that at the time it was very, very surprising as well.

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haha yes.

[EPG]

But one thing that has happened since the 80s in Lewisham is the "downscale terrace" effect - quite reliable in London as a correlate of recent economic decline and white-flight. Lewisham East is #32/573 in England and Wales for White ethnicity, albeit not one with minorities in the majority. That now means Labour is hugely favoured, but NB Labour also won 6 of the 10 most white constituencies in England and Wales!