The best start to a Friday…#GreenParty ‘s Hannah Spencer wins #GortonAndDenton byelection…and pushes #Labour who had had a comfortable majority there into third place.
“Rather than winning narrowly, the [Green party] won 40.7%, enough to put them as much as 12 points ahead of second placed #Reform. It represented as much as a 27.5 point increase on the party’s share in 2024.
Labour, who had not hitherto lost an election in the area since 1931, fell into third place.”
Professor Sir John Curtice
But the bad news from Professor Sir Curtice continued on the stale dead old parties:
“The [#Labour] party’s 25.4% of the vote represented a near halving of their 50.8% of the vote in 2024 and the 13th biggest ever fall in the party’s support in a byelection.
Meanwhile, the #Conservatives lost their deposit with just 1.9% of the vote, their worst ever byelection result.”
This is bad news for both #Starmer and #Badenoch. There is a seismic shift away from both their parties.
Former YouGov president,Peter Kellner:
“This time, turnout was almost the same as in 2024. To be sure, some former #Labour voters will have stayed at home, while #Reform and the #Greens picked up some new voters. But the lion’s share of Labour’s 9,000 lost votes did not stay away: they switched to other parties.”
There is no love for #Starmer here and he was punished for not letting Andy Burnham stand…but this is not a one off result, as Kellner goes on to say…
“There is quite separate evidence of the depth of the hole in which #Labour now finds itself. Week after week by-elections are held for local councils.
More than 200 have been held since last May. Greg Cook, Labour’s former head of political strategy, and Mark Pack, a Lib Dem peer and meticulous number cruncher, tell the same story. Labour has failed to gain a single seat, and lost three-quarters of the seats it was defending.”
Peter Kellner
Professor of politics, Rob Ford:
“As I noted in my Swingometer profile of the seat this result - #Green win over #Reform with #Labour 3rd - is the nightmare scenario for the incumbent govt.
They have fallen into the electoral Valley of Death. Rejected in the centre. Rejected on the right. And now rejected on the left”
And yet #Labour have trotted out Heidi Alexander on the media rounds to say the stale old thing that big parties always say about by elections that don’t go in their favour - this result should not be ‘over interpreted’…which means they will ignore it and sadly not learn from it.
#Starmer has pissed away Labour’s 2024 victory.
Nothing to show for it and haemorrhaging votes in areas that have been solid Labour for almost 100 years.
Nobody wants #Labour to be #Tory or #Reform Lite.
The Labour Party that supported working people, women, disabled and ethnic minorities has been lost to the cynically named centre right cult of #LabourTogether…and don’t think just because Morgan McSweeney has gone its been swept away.
It lives on in key Cabinet figures such as Steve Reed, Shabana Mahmood, Lisa Nandy and Wes Streeting…and even in Starmer himself, in as much as much as he aligns with any ideology.
It’s a gift to #Greens.
As new #Green MP #HannahSpencer has just stated #gortonanddenton was 127th on the Greens list of target seats.
That means there are 126 seats where the Greens could win on a smaller swing.
But we won’t have to wait until the next byelection to see the newly invigorated Green Party roar…local elections are now back on in just a few short weeks time.
Just watch this Green momentum build.
Meanwhile, #Starmer appears to still be in the death grip of McSweeney’s centre-right cult of #LabourTogether…otherwise reported this morning by Professor Rob Ford as ‘Electoral Valley of Death’:
“I will fight against the extremes in politics on the right and the left, parties who want to tear our country apart.”
Keep on describing the #GreenParty as extreme Left Starmer please do, because their voters absolutely know they are not, they are just sensible people sick of division.
Watched clip of Julia Hartley Brewer and Henry Hill flailing about trying to understand what just happened…the former resorting to taunts about Hannah Spencer having the haircut of a 5yr old…
This comment sums up the Right today:
“The current argument of the British right is that Muslims turned out in “blocs” with “family voting” to cast their ballots for a party led by a gay Jewish man, and this shows that multiculturalism has failed, voting is “sectarian” and we are in a crisis.
Hmmmmmm.”
Quote above was from James Ball political editor of New World (formerly New European)…
But it seems that Farage is repeating his claim about Muslim families ‘bloc voting’ which I first heard reported by Nick Watt on Newsnight last night.
The Democracy Volunteers that claim they witnessed this, didn’t report their concerns during the poll itself and Manchester City Council have come out saying no evidence has been reported to them.
Regular followers won’t be suprised that the #Labour MP for #Norwich South, Clive Lewis has been vocally very unimpressed by his party’s performance yesterday:
“The byelection result is a punch in the face for the Labour Party and for Keir #Starmer’s premiership.”
Well Clive you know what to do…change sides, because you know the main opposition in your constituency has been the #Greens for years now. It won’t take much. Either you’re with them or ship out.
It’s fighting talk from the leftwing #Green friendly Clive Lewis:
“This government has burned its base, alienated its core vote, sidelined its activists and stuck two fingers up to the very people we came into politics to represent - and we’re surprised voters are walking away?
Changing the leader without changing the politics would be a waste of time. The problem isn’t presentation. It’s direction. We promised change and delivered continuity”
So he hates #LabourTogether…but now what?
Meanwhile the centre right cult #LabourTogether that is killing the #Labour party continues on its doomed mission to be #Reform Lite:
‘Shabana Mahmood will press on with hardline immigration policies despite calls for a reversal from unions and left-leaning #Labour MPs after the #Green party’s byelection victory.’
‘#Mahmood would not learn “the wrong lessons” from the byelection. “The idea that we are losing Muslim voters over immigration is plain wrong,” a [#Labour ] party source said.’
Hmmm…you’re right, suggesting people live and work in the UK for at least 20 years before they can pay to have the right to remain isn’t the whole reason #Labour is shedding Muslim votes right now despite having a Muslim Home Secretary. It’s because they have ignored #genocide in #Gaza and locked up protestors.
@JugglingWithEggs All true, I agree with your analysis. Appeasement just legitimizes Reform and makes racism and other toxicity more acceptable in public: it doesn't bring back voters, while they lose more on the left. It's repeatedly failed in other countries, but "centrists" keep trying it, because they hate the left.
However unless Reform drops a bit further in the polls, we could still see a Reform or Reform/Tory government. Tactical voting in the by-election was even stronger on the right than on the left, and outside of the maybe 70 (120 now?) winnable seats for the Greens, it may not be obvious who the best tactical choice is.
Especially as Starmer won't introduce PR. But even if he did, the combined far right vote (tory and Reform) is about the same size as the combined left and center vote. Though probably the centrist part of the tory party would split if PR was introduced; in any case it's not going to happen.
Tactical voting alone won't save us. I'm not sure new Labour leadership will either, unless their policies change. I don't think Wes Streeting would do any better than Starmer!
Unless Reform's vote share drops significantly, democracy, not to mention climate action and anyone who isn't a cis-gendered white conservative non-disabled man, remain at risk.
But on the upside, there is a tentative trend to Reform's lead narrowing. Probably because they've announced a bunch of policies recently. Which in spite of the press's appeasement, are utterly terrible, e.g. repealing the Equalities Act, scrapping worker protections, scrapping renter protections etc. Reheated tory austerity with a side of fascism.
So for only the second time in the last year or so, there is a little hope.
Traffic light coalition perhaps?
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/
Note that Reform's coalition of voters is just as fragmented as anyone else's. And they're vulnerable on many issues including change change, for instance about 29% are basically eco-fascists (i.e. anti-immigration, socially conservative, but pro-nature). Only 26% of Reform voters are the mythical white working class, with the rest made up by 18% hardline tories, 9% young, Tate-influenced potential brownshirts, and 19% protest voters. Hopefully some of those groups are reachable.
Also, about 40% of their vote are women; hopefully many of them won't be happy about repealing the Equality Act. And maybe that's part of the current trend.
All polls, trends and election news for the the United Kingdom, Scotland and London — Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Brexit Party, SNP, Greens, Scottish independence referendum and Scotland election polls.
Who makes up Reform vote is a good point - it’s not homogeneous. Which elements are more reachable than others or liable to either stay at home on polling day or want something more extreme.
I’ve long thought Dominic Cummings unleashed the Brexiteer voter, which involved getting people out of the woodwork who had never voted. Both Boris and Farage sought to get those voters to vote for them again. But are they dwindling (dying off) or growing?
Juggling With Eggs
MatthewToadAgain
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