UK: Mainstream parties crushed in by-election

Maxinquaye · Mar 30, 2012

You might think that with a deeply unpopular UK government that the opposition would fare well in a safe opposition seat like Bradford West in the UK, but last-night's by-election there was a crushing defeat for the main parties, and in particular Labour.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/30/bradford-west-byelection-labour-harman?newsfeed=true

Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour party leader, has admitted the result of the Bradford West byelection was "very bad" for Labour.

Labour's shocked candidate Imran Hussain was crushed by a 36.59% swing from Labour to Respect that saw George Galloway take the seat with a majority of 10,140 on a turnout of just over 50%.

Voters turned their backs on the mainstream parties with Labour's share of the vote down 20% on its 2010 figure, while the Conservatives dropped by almost 23% and the Liberal Democrats lost their deposit after netting 4.59% of the votes – down 7% on the 2010 general election result.

The LibDems were obliterated in the seat, and had lost its deposit, and then went on to blame the loss on the fact that the voters turned out. If voters had stayed at home, the result would have been better, according to the LibDems...

The Tories too suffered a setback. All the main parties in parliament lost to the candidate from the tiny Respect Party that campaigned on an anti-war message.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17549388

He [George Galloway, the winning candidate] said Labour "must stop imagining that working people and poor people have no option but to support them if they hate the Tory and Liberal Democrat coalition partners.

"They have to stop supporting illegal, bloody, costly foreign wars because one of the reasons why they were so decisively defeated this evening is that the public don't believe that they have atoned for their role in the invasion and occupation of other people's countries and the drowning of those countries in blood."

RichardGarfinkle · Mar 30, 2012

Maxinquaye said:
You might think that with a deeply unpopular UK government that the opposition would fare well in a safe opposition seat like Bradford West in the UK, but last-night's by-election there was a crushing defeat for the main parties, and in particular Labour.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/30/bradford-west-byelection-labour-harman?newsfeed=true

The LibDems were obliterated in the seat, and had lost its deposit, and then went on to blame the loss on the fact that the voters turned out. If voters had stayed at home, the result would have been better, according to the LibDems...

The Tories too suffered a setback. All the main parties in parliament lost to the candidate from the tiny Respect Party that campaigned on an anti-war message.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17549388

What's the Respect party about? I haven't heard of them.

Alessandra Kelley · Mar 30, 2012

Maxinquaye said:
The LibDems were obliterated in the seat, and had lost its deposit, and then went on to blame the loss on the fact that the voters turned out. If voters had stayed at home, the result would have been better, according to the LibDems...

You mean they blamed their bad results on lack of poor voter turnout?

That takes gall. In essence they're saying "It's not fair. Lots more voters turned up and voted for the other guys."

Question of an ignorant American: are the Liberal Democrats anything like the liberals or the Democrats in the USA?

Priene · Mar 30, 2012

Maxinquaye said:
You might think that with a deeply unpopular UK government

I'd like that to be true, but the evidence is against it. The polls seem to have turned against the Tories this last week, but before that they've been regularly ahead of Labour for several years. And that's without counting the (admittedly diminished) popularity of their hand-wringing mini-mes, the Liberal Democrats.

Maxinquaye said:
here was a crushing defeat for the main parties, and in particular Labour.

It was a terrible result for British politics, and an extremely worrying one, but Galloway has a history of winning seats with large Muslim populations - witness his destruction of Oona King's career in Bethnal Green and Bow - and Bradford is one of the country's most Muslim boroughs and heavily segregated. If Respect ever managed to win a seat outside outside Muslim areas or without Galloway standing, I'd be extremely surprised. Labour easily retook Bethnal Green once Galloway stood down.

Here's Galloway being a revolting arsehole on national television. Give yourselves a pat on the back, Bradford West.

Priene · Mar 30, 2012

Alessandra Kelley said:
You mean they blamed their bad results on lack of poor voter turnout?

It's an established fact that turnout is lower in by-elections than in General Elections. This leads to minority parties with the ability to mobilise their supporters often doing surprising well. These results are usually reversed at the next general election. In past years, the Liberal Democrats were often the beneficiaries of this effect.

Alessandra Kelley said:
are the Liberal Democrats anything like the liberals or the Democrats in the USA?

They're a centrist minority party who used to claim to be progressive but have gone into a coalition government with the Tories. They're supporting whatever nonsense the Tories come up with and are basically marking time until they get wiped out at the next General Election.

Alessandra Kelley · Mar 30, 2012

Priene said:
They're a centrist minority party who used to claim to be progressive but have gone into a coalition government with the Tories. They're supporting whatever nonsense the Tories come up with and are basically marking time until they get wiped out at the next General Election.

So the Liberal Democrats are kind of like Reagan Democrats?

Maxinquaye · Mar 30, 2012

No, you can't translate like that. Many conservative parties in Europe are to the left of centrist democrats, on the left-right scale. They are conservative about other things; class, the monarchy, keeping the chavs in their station, rather than being against the state or government spending.

I would say that the LibDems would probably score a lot to the left of centrist democrats, even now, but in the context of their culture they're an annoying bunch of shites.

Alessandra Kelley · Mar 30, 2012

Maxinquaye said:
No, you can't translate like that. Many conservative parties in Europe are to the left of centrist democrats, on the left-right scale. They are conservative about other things; class, the monarchy, keeping the chavs in their station, rather than being against the state or government spending.

I would say that the LibDems would probably score a lot to the left of centrist democrats, even now, but in the context of their culture they're an annoying bunch of shites.

I apologize for my ignorance. The boldest bits are the most mind-blowing for me. Is there anywhere a clear explanation of European political parties? It doesn't have to be simple, but clear and with not too much of an axe to grind would be very helpful.

Priene · Mar 30, 2012

Alessandra Kelley said:
So the Liberal Democrats are kind of like Reagan Democrats?

Not really. They come in different forms - a social democratic splinter group who split from Labour back in the 1980s, might-have-been Tory wets who couldn't abide the Tories' social illiberalism, lefties from regions where Labour never gained much of a foothold (Labour replaced the Liberals as a party of government back in the 1920s), and some rump Liberals who have always been that way. You'd have to ask them why they're Liberals, because I've never been able to figure it out.

Anyway, they were out of power for many decades until the last election whose arithmetic ensured that a coalition was necessary. They leapt into bed with the Tories despite large numbers of their voters hating them for it.

Torgo · Mar 30, 2012

RichardGarfinkle said:
What's the Respect party about? I haven't heard of them.

It's a socialist party that was founded largely out of opposition to the Iraq war. It has had a little electoral success; it's not too different from, say, the Green party that way.

BunnyMaz · Mar 30, 2012

Alessandra Kelley said:
I apologize for my ignorance. The boldest bits are the most mind-blowing for me. Is there anywhere a clear explanation of European political parties? It doesn't have to be simple, but clear and with not too much of an axe to grind would be very helpful.

Yeah, the US Govt as a whole looks significantly more to the right than even a lot of right-wing EU governments.

See, in the UK right now the main parties are Labour, Conservatives (Tories) and Lib Dems. The Lib Dems right now don't seem to stand for much of anything, having bedded in thoroughly with the Tories, but overall it's like this. The Tories are our mainstream right-of-centre party, Labour are more left-of-centre and Lib Dems slightly more left than Labour. The Lib Dems campaign at the last general election included big points like supporting free/affordable higher education, while the Tories had messages like "we'll cut the deficit, not the NHS".

We have something of a big gap in our politics. The Tories are our mainstream right-of-centre party, but even they support things like gay marriage. And after them you're left with UKIP and... the BNP. There are other small parties to the right, but mostly they don't get enough votes to even mention. To the left we have the Greens and Respect.

The Respect guys that won out above are pretty interesting, actually.

Personally, I'm tempted to vote for these guys in the next one. I voted Lib Dem before. Never again.

Priene · Mar 30, 2012

BunnyMaz said:
The Tories are our mainstream right-of-centre party, Labour are more left-of-centre and Lib Dems slightly more left than Labour.

No way. Not only are they in bed with the Tories, but Orange Book Liberals took over their party several years ago.

waylander · Mar 30, 2012

I suspect the Lib-Dems activists are further to the left than the Parliamentary party.

BunnyMaz · Mar 30, 2012

Priene said:
No way. Not only are they in bed with the Tories, but Orange Book Liberals took over their party several years ago.

I was speaking more to where they are perceived to be, and where they like to pretend to be (free education being a part of their manifesto for the big election put them left of Labour at the time). Obviously, it's pretty clear they're not left or right of anything these days, they're just exactly where the Tories tell them to be.

mirandashell · Mar 30, 2012

The one thing George Galloway has is the ability to take a cause and run with it. The cause at the moment is an anti-war one. And as many Muslims are at least uncomfortable with our army being in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, Galloway gives them a chance to give the government a kicking and show how they feel.

mirandashell · Mar 30, 2012

Have to say though, it's been a good week for Tory watchers. First the pasty fiasco, then the fuel debacle and GG sticking his fingers up. How much more of a bunch of fools can the Government look?

The bad side of it is a woman got very badly burned by petrol she had stored in her garage. As recommended by a Gov minister.

blacbird · Mar 31, 2012

Alessandra Kelley said:
Is there anywhere a clear explanation of European political parties? It doesn't have to be simple, but clear and with not too much of an axe to grind would be very helpful.

Probably not, but it's helpful for comparison to remember that the American political fulcrum has swung much farther to the right than in almost any European nation. Can you imagine a European nation in which a major candidate for national leadership is opposed to contraception, let alone legalize abortion?

caw

crunchyblanket · Mar 31, 2012

blacbird said:
Probably not, but it's helpful for comparison to remember that the American political fulcrum has swung much farther to the right than in almost any European nation. Can you imagine a European nation in which a major candidate for national leadership is opposed to contraception, let alone legalize abortion?

caw

And yet if you're a lefty in the UK, you'll likely find none of the major parties really represent your interests. Honestly, Labour and the Tories seem to be peas in a pod these days - very few policies separating them in any meaningful way, and the Lib Dems are now the joke of UK politics. I'd vote Green, but I know it'd be a wasted vote.

(of course, if you're a right-winger, the mainstream parties won't do much for you either. Hence the existence of the BNP and UKIP)

Maxinquaye · Mar 31, 2012

Labour is weird. You had Tony Blair, a supposed leftie, running around George Bush (a right wing republican) yapping like a happy poodle and getting the UK involved in any war the then administration wanted.

Something that Labour still pays a political debt for, and which Labour still won't reconcile themselves with. Most of the Blair-appointees are still in high office in the party, and don't really want to come to terms with it.

Which is one reason why Galloway won last night. That the Tories suffered too is more understandable since no sitting government fare well in by-elections.

Parametric · Mar 31, 2012

mirandashell said:
Have to say though, it's been a good week for Tory watchers. First the pasty fiasco, then the fuel debacle and GG sticking his fingers up. How much more of a bunch of fools can the Government look?

The bad side of it is a woman got very badly burned by petrol she had stored in her garage. As recommended by a Gov minister.

In fairness, the minister did not recommend decanting petrol into a jug in your kitchen with your gas cooker on. :tongue

crunchyblanket · Mar 31, 2012

Maxinquaye said:
Labour is weird. You had Tony Blair, a supposed leftie, running around George Bush (a right wing republican) yapping like a happy poodle and getting the UK involved in any war the then administration wanted.

That's 'New Labour' for you.

Some of Blair's earliest policies - establishing the national minimum wage, for example - were (imo) admirable. But the Iraq war and 'special relationship' will always be his legacy, and for good reason.

Priene · Mar 31, 2012

Maxinquaye said:
Most of the Blair-appointees are still in high office in the party, and don't really want to come to terms with it.

The Blairites are mainly out of office: they're the ones that have been briefing against Ed Miliband. His brother is their Prince-Over-The-Water.

Torgo · Mar 31, 2012

Yeah, the Ed Ballses of this world were Brownites rather than Blairites.

Maxinquaye · Mar 31, 2012

But Brown was himself a committed Blairite, although he was sulking about the PM-ship at times. It was only after Brown took over that there was a separation into a Blairite and Brownite "camp". At least officially. Until then, Brown supported what Blair did, and carried on many of Blair's policies.

Priene · Mar 31, 2012

Maxinquaye said:
But Brown was himself a committed Blairite, although he was sulking about the PM-ship at times.

You could certainly argue that New Labour was a creation of both Blair and Brown, but it's not normal to call Brown a Blairite, if only because they and their cohorts hated each others' guts. I'd say the main Blairites were Tony Jesus himself, Snakey Mandelson, David the Vacillator Miliband, Alan Not up to It, Johnson and that Geordie bloke whose name escapes me. And maybe Harriet Harperson, and she is the only one still high up in the Labour Party.

UK: Mainstream parties crushed in by-election

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