A couple of (largely stolen) thoughts on Hartlepool

[andrewducker]

This doesn't look good:

Hartlepool, parliamentary by-election result:

Con: 51.9% (+23.0)
Lab: 28.7% (-9.0)
Ind: 9.7% (+7.5)
RefUK: 1.2% (-24.6)
Grn: 1.2% (+1.2)
LDem: 1.2% (-3.0)
Oth: 6.1% (+4.9)

Con GAIN from Lab.

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 7, 2021

And looking at it in absolute terms makes it clear how badly things have gone for Labour:

In 2017, the Tories got 14,319 votes in Hartleypool. In 2021, they got 15,529.

In 2017, Labour got 21,969 votes. In 2021, they got 8589.

That’s not a swing to the Conservatives; that’s people not caring enough to show up.

— Adam Smith (@adamndsmith) May 7, 2021

So what's happened here is that a bunch of ReformUK voters (the old name for which was the "Brexit Party") switched to voting Conservative, while Labour voters stayed at home because they didn't see the point.

Easy, you'd think. Labour just need to get more Brexit-oriented and bring home those lovely Brexit voters. It's what the people want! But wait!

Hendon (Sunderland) council result:

LDem: 42.2% (+34.8)
Lab: 34.8% (-30.2)
Con: 15.5% (-4.8)
Grn: 4.5% (-2.9)
UKIP: 3.1% (+3.1)

LDem GAIN from Lab
More: https://t.co/laSaIRWUOf

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 6, 2021

Turns out that actually they don't! One party can't just dither in the middle of things and hope that the issues that split them go away!

Now, if Labour had held up their side of the bargain in 1997, and we had PR now, this wouldn't be such a problem. But under FPTP, multiple parties on one side of an issue versus a single party on the other side means that the unified side wins every time! And as Labour's rules prevent pacts England is going to be fucked for quite some time.

Edit. Here are the Labour votes over the last few elections:

2010 LAB Hold, 16,267 (Milliband)
2015 LAB hold, 14,076 (Milliband)
2017 LAB hold, 21,969 (Corbyn)
2019 LAB hold, 15,464 (Corbyn)
2021 LAB loss - 8589 (Stamner)

So Corbyn took Labour to a high point in 2017 in Hartlepool, then even after the prolonged media lashing in 2019, he still did better there than milliband had done.

Comments

[alithea]

Yeah, people obsessing over Brexit are missing the point I think. It's not that Labour aren't pro-brexit, it's that they have sat on the fence so long that no-one knows what the point of them is any more. Starmer was supposed to be a safe pair of hands but he's been so safe, he's not actually opposed the Tories.

[angelofthenorth]

I think you've missed something about politics also being local - if you read the Britain Elects preview (and I also have some local knowledge thanks to my cousin) you'll see that Labour has imploded at local government level, and at the same time Hartlepool has massively gentrified.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, that's a big problem for them too. Lots of areas where Labour took the local population for granted


(Including Scotland, which ended very badly for them)

[mountainkiss]

I do not want to dismiss the macro / demographic aspects of this, but I am somewhat disinclined to extrapolate too much from a mid-pandemic election. I don't think anyone cares about much beyond that (leaving #indyref aside) and this is a very good time in the pandemic narrative for the Conservatives. I get that the gap to be closed for a 2024GE is probably unbridgeable, but I also think that a lot's going to happen between now and then.

[alithea]

That's a fair point, but I do think Labour has big problems, that have been brewing for a while and are now coming to a head. If we had a more proportional voting system for Westminster, I'd say they were heading for a split in the party, but as we don't, I really don't know what they are going to do.

[andrewducker]

I actually do agree. Once the pandemic is over and Brexit continues to work its magic we'll see if the tactic of "do very little and wait for the other side to fuck up" starts working better.

Peston also has a reasonable line of thought on this.
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1391109040546123778

[mountainkiss]

I agree. The PM’s character has not improved. He is still a compulsive liar. He still doesn’t think any rule applies to him. His party has been in power since 2010. 2024 is quite a way away.

[problemsdog]

It's easy to miss just how bad the Labour setup in Hartlepool was though. Mike Hill, the outgoing MP, is a nasty piece of work and is facing ongoing sexual harassment and victimization charges. Sounds like the local Labour party had a reputation for incompetence and corruption, too. That alone would probably explain the massive swing even before you get to the demographic change in the area and the general lack of any identifiable Labour policy position.