Hopefully this result will lead to the BBC giving the Green Party the ongoing coverage it deserves rather than continuing to spout Farage’s private company’s propaganda.
This result confirms that there are now no safe seats in Westminster . MPs should change the voting system to AV as it will provide some stability to a 5 way party system .
Do you reckon they could do that without a referendum? Legally I think they could, but since we had a referendum on AV in 2011 that set a precedent and if Labour tried to change the voting system without one after this by-election loss they'd be accused of rigging the system. I think now a referendum on AV would be successful. It's pretty obvious that FPTP is not fit for purpose.
The party agreed to a change at conference a couple of years back so the consensus from party grassroots is already there. We definitely don’t need a referendum on it because the only party not to have agreed to it are the Tories - although Farage has gone strangely quiet on the subject since grabbing a poll lead.
The simple truth is the two party duopoly is dead and we need a system that makes every vote count. The current political shift will not go away and we need an honest conversation about that and how to make it fairer. We elect governments to pass good legislation and don’t need a referendum because the majority of MPs represent parties who either made a manifesto pledge or have grassroots support for it.
Pitching it as making your vote count is surely attractive to people whoever they supported. Our multi party future will only be democratic and truly representative if we do it. FPTP is no longer fit for purpose. What we shouldn’t do is force the voters to choose the candidate based on stopping who they don’t want at any cost.
The next election already looks like being exactly that and it’s terrible news for Reform PLC. The progressives now know they can be easily beaten if they make the right choice. The stark fact is that there are more of them and they will be doing whatever it takes to stop them.
They’ve tasted blood and seen the result. It will be very interesting to see what effect this has on the local elections in May. If Reform PLC’s momentum is limited then, things get even more interesting.
Remind me which parties campaigned for AV at the last general election. Ah, the joys of AI. I've just checked and the answer seems to be none, although the LDs, SNP and Plaid campaigned for STV.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if Reform went against it and pitched it as Labour trying to rig the system without the people’s consent. Has Farage actually spoken in favour of AV? I know he’s supported PR. That would take longer to introduce though so probably couldn’t be done before the next election.
He wants a change but I think he’d take anything rather than AV. The few times pollsters have asked the question about ranking parties 50% ranked them last. It would be catastrophic for their chances of even becoming the opposition party in government.
The truth of the matter is that there are around possibly 25% of the electorate is strongly opposed to mass immigration. However the numbers who are ok with it, using the AV polling intentions, suggest that this is outweighed by 2 to 1. This varies depending upon geography and the makeup of the population but it’s hugely significant. The G&D result reflects that too.
I had read recently (was it one of your helpful substacks?), and read in a tactical voting analysis, that far more labour and Lib Dem voters would be prepared to vote green to keep reform out than green voters prepared to vote Labour tactically. So while not denying what you’ve said above I’d like to understand how many of those green votes are Labour or LibDem supporters making a tactical choice. I don’t think we can safely assume that all of them are now hard and fast green supporters from now on. So a bit of caution….that said your use of the wider councillor election results is stronger than this one off.
It is quite tedious to hear the various political commentaries on the bbc this morning using this to spice up their pre existing views or Westminster gossip.
I remain very committed to an end to first past the post and a move to a PR system that would let our elected representatives reflect more closely our divided views in the country…
Yes it was Forward Democracy, thanks for the reminder. Incidentally I suspect Green supporters will be pleased that fewer of their voters were prepared to vote tactically for someone else to keep reform out. In my view there is an element in there of “I must preserve my own ideological purity regardless of who that might let through to take power”. It’s a classic attitude within the British left and in my view nothing to be proud of. I prefer the principled pragmatism of tactical voting. In the general election I know that Lib Dem’s lent their votes to Labour where I live, and the opposite occurred in the neighbouring constituency. Result, two fewer Tory MPs and one new MP for each of the opposition parties.
FPTP simply isn’t fit for a multi party system - especially one where there is one party who are so divisive to the majority that they will vote for anyone with a decent shot of beating them. If Labour wanted to be really bold they’d add this to their plans to reform local government and the upper house.
Whilst it’s interesting to consider this election as a win for the left, I would caution against getting carried away by that. This is as much a win for the progressive majority who are tolerant and generally multicultural.
Additionally Hannah’s success is partly due to the steady progress the Greens have made locally over successive council elections. Polanski has turbocharged this but they didn’t get 900+ councillors out of nowhere. Hannah was one of them and her speech made that abundantly clear.
This brings in another factor about the longstanding grassroots Greens. Polling shows the party they would most likely go into government with are the Liberal Democrats. They share many policy similarities and would make an attractive alternative government for a lot of people. After all the consensus has been the Lib Dem’s are seen as currently left of Labour by observers and, increasingly, voters.
Both parties have been the biggest winners (until last May) locally. What that means is both have parts of the country where they know how to win and already have the boots on the ground to campaign.
I’m sure many Greens would be likely to lend their votes to stop Reform PLC in areas they cannot win and vice versa. Looking at the Lib Dem vote in G&D I think many did.
I've been wondering the same thing: where is the analysis or even recognition of the impact of tactical voting here? I'm not resident in the constituency nor aligned with any specific party but it wasn't hard for anyone with a passing interest in tactical voting to see that The Greens were (just) the logical left wing choice here. I have no illusions about the Green Party and it's leadership. They wouldn't be my first choice, but as a centre left voter I'd vote Green to defeat Reform or the Conservatives. I'm clearly not alone
Why we're the Greens the logical choice for a tactical vote when Labour won the last election there with a large majority? It was only logical once you assumed away Labour's previous dominance. Doesn't that need explaining, not taking as a given?
Might that have been the analysis by Forward Democracy? This is much what they were saying to their supporters. They now have every right to feel pretty smug about it.
Labour's heavy handed rejection of Andy Burnham as a candidate, the deeply unpleasant Reform candidate, it wasn't that hard to see that the local plumber would come through.
It’s only another by-election with three years at least before the next GE. I think (hope) Reform have peaked. Greens need to work out what they are about and be realistic. Labour will need to get its act together around Starmer. The Tories have a mountain to climb and the Lib Dem’s need to focus their efforts to the prosperous SE. Could have been written before the results. All else is tittle tattle.
I'm suprised Peter didn't mention the startling failure of the polls. Reputable pollsters (not one's invented by the Labour Party) have been saying 'It's too close to call' for weeks now. This after their failure in the last General Election where pollsters over-estimated Labours support by 10% (or 30% of their actual vote).
WIll this teach the media not to do spend most of their time majoring on opinion polls? Trying in effect to predict the result rather than reporting on the news when it has happened.
The polls weren’t necessarily wrong. By-elections often see late swings, especially in tight contests where tactical voting comes into play. There was some late evidence that the Greens were more likely to stop Reform UK than Labour, which may have convinced anti-Reform UK Labour supporters to switch to Green at the last minute. Or maybe the polls were, indeed off. It’s not possible to know for sure.
Yes, you are right, it is not possible to know for sure which is why we should ignore the polls! A (very) last minute surge to the Greens is exteremly unlikely. Luke Tryll was on newsnight after the polls had closed saying 'its too close to call'.
I wouldn't say ignore the polls so much as be aware of their limitations. They're taking a snapshot, asking how would you vote if the election were today, not predicting what the actual result will be on election day. If I were in Gorton and Denton I would have wanted to know who was most likely to beat Reform and that's the candidate I would have voted for.
Polls are important to political parties but they are lazy lazy journalism. Of course the solution to poll mania is a proportional voting system so you can vote for what you believe rather against what you hate.
Zero evidence here of the ‘progressive parties’ being able to orchestrate the coordinated campaign that will be essential to defeat the right in the next general election. I’m left wondering whether to weep or join the cat laughing.
Where I would disagree is that 30%, or perhaps even more, would be enough for Reform. One thing this by-election suggests is that there is a substantial majority in most seats that will vote for whoever can keep Reform out. Even if Reform can get 35% support in a seat they can still be kept out if 50% are willing to follow the tactical voting suggestions to stop them. One thing seems sure - the tactical voting sites are going to have a lot of sway at the next General Election.
I'm quite surprised, however, that you've not heard of the Britain Predicts model before. It's a polling model developed by Britain Elects under the aegis of the New Statesman and its 'State of the Nation' blog. It's been going since 2021 and appears perfectly kosher. More info here:
The EU referendum still has echoes, Gaza is a live issue but the most significant problems are those created by the previous Government and Labour has continued those themes in an attempt to outflank Reform. The progressives , have an open field for the Middle and Left grounds.
How very strange that Labour made no mention of the genuine promoters of tactical voting, Democracy First. Or perhaps not. Its very clear advice was that voting Green, not Labour, would be the best course for those wishing to stymie Reform, having conducted polling that suggested that 66% of those who count themselves as supporters of Labour or the LibDem would be prepared to do so. Both its advice and its polling were evidently spot on. It really is very strange, then, that Kellner, too, prefers not to acknowledge their existence, let alone the perspicacity now confirmed by the by-election result.
Tony Benn also got right the need to focus on the following four industrial sectors: machine tools, computing, telecomms and aerospace. If Ted Heath and subsequent prime ministers had stuck with this, the UK would today be far richer.
It's par for the course that Labour make up statistics but the good news is that they were well and truly thrashed. Will they learn? Unlikely. They'll double down on dishonesty and further erode the public opinion of politicians. But let me chastise you for a churlish and mean spirited comment: "One of the very few things that Tony Benn got right". I think coming from someone who's contribution to public life has been as an observer and sometime commentator this is disappointingly arrogant and petty. Tony Benn was a significant and original political figure who inspired many people and who spent his life in public service. You are of course entitled to your opinions on him, but this sort of comment reflects much more poorly on you than on him. Shame on you.
Hopefully this result will lead to the BBC giving the Green Party the ongoing coverage it deserves rather than continuing to spout Farage’s private company’s propaganda.
This result confirms that there are now no safe seats in Westminster . MPs should change the voting system to AV as it will provide some stability to a 5 way party system .
Do you reckon they could do that without a referendum? Legally I think they could, but since we had a referendum on AV in 2011 that set a precedent and if Labour tried to change the voting system without one after this by-election loss they'd be accused of rigging the system. I think now a referendum on AV would be successful. It's pretty obvious that FPTP is not fit for purpose.
The party agreed to a change at conference a couple of years back so the consensus from party grassroots is already there. We definitely don’t need a referendum on it because the only party not to have agreed to it are the Tories - although Farage has gone strangely quiet on the subject since grabbing a poll lead.
The simple truth is the two party duopoly is dead and we need a system that makes every vote count. The current political shift will not go away and we need an honest conversation about that and how to make it fairer. We elect governments to pass good legislation and don’t need a referendum because the majority of MPs represent parties who either made a manifesto pledge or have grassroots support for it.
Pitching it as making your vote count is surely attractive to people whoever they supported. Our multi party future will only be democratic and truly representative if we do it. FPTP is no longer fit for purpose. What we shouldn’t do is force the voters to choose the candidate based on stopping who they don’t want at any cost.
The next election already looks like being exactly that and it’s terrible news for Reform PLC. The progressives now know they can be easily beaten if they make the right choice. The stark fact is that there are more of them and they will be doing whatever it takes to stop them.
They’ve tasted blood and seen the result. It will be very interesting to see what effect this has on the local elections in May. If Reform PLC’s momentum is limited then, things get even more interesting.
Remind me which parties campaigned for AV at the last general election. Ah, the joys of AI. I've just checked and the answer seems to be none, although the LDs, SNP and Plaid campaigned for STV.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if Reform went against it and pitched it as Labour trying to rig the system without the people’s consent. Has Farage actually spoken in favour of AV? I know he’s supported PR. That would take longer to introduce though so probably couldn’t be done before the next election.
He wants a change but I think he’d take anything rather than AV. The few times pollsters have asked the question about ranking parties 50% ranked them last. It would be catastrophic for their chances of even becoming the opposition party in government.
The truth of the matter is that there are around possibly 25% of the electorate is strongly opposed to mass immigration. However the numbers who are ok with it, using the AV polling intentions, suggest that this is outweighed by 2 to 1. This varies depending upon geography and the makeup of the population but it’s hugely significant. The G&D result reflects that too.
I had read recently (was it one of your helpful substacks?), and read in a tactical voting analysis, that far more labour and Lib Dem voters would be prepared to vote green to keep reform out than green voters prepared to vote Labour tactically. So while not denying what you’ve said above I’d like to understand how many of those green votes are Labour or LibDem supporters making a tactical choice. I don’t think we can safely assume that all of them are now hard and fast green supporters from now on. So a bit of caution….that said your use of the wider councillor election results is stronger than this one off.
It is quite tedious to hear the various political commentaries on the bbc this morning using this to spice up their pre existing views or Westminster gossip.
I remain very committed to an end to first past the post and a move to a PR system that would let our elected representatives reflect more closely our divided views in the country…
Yes it was Forward Democracy, thanks for the reminder. Incidentally I suspect Green supporters will be pleased that fewer of their voters were prepared to vote tactically for someone else to keep reform out. In my view there is an element in there of “I must preserve my own ideological purity regardless of who that might let through to take power”. It’s a classic attitude within the British left and in my view nothing to be proud of. I prefer the principled pragmatism of tactical voting. In the general election I know that Lib Dem’s lent their votes to Labour where I live, and the opposite occurred in the neighbouring constituency. Result, two fewer Tory MPs and one new MP for each of the opposition parties.
FPTP simply isn’t fit for a multi party system - especially one where there is one party who are so divisive to the majority that they will vote for anyone with a decent shot of beating them. If Labour wanted to be really bold they’d add this to their plans to reform local government and the upper house.
Whilst it’s interesting to consider this election as a win for the left, I would caution against getting carried away by that. This is as much a win for the progressive majority who are tolerant and generally multicultural.
Additionally Hannah’s success is partly due to the steady progress the Greens have made locally over successive council elections. Polanski has turbocharged this but they didn’t get 900+ councillors out of nowhere. Hannah was one of them and her speech made that abundantly clear.
This brings in another factor about the longstanding grassroots Greens. Polling shows the party they would most likely go into government with are the Liberal Democrats. They share many policy similarities and would make an attractive alternative government for a lot of people. After all the consensus has been the Lib Dem’s are seen as currently left of Labour by observers and, increasingly, voters.
Both parties have been the biggest winners (until last May) locally. What that means is both have parts of the country where they know how to win and already have the boots on the ground to campaign.
I’m sure many Greens would be likely to lend their votes to stop Reform PLC in areas they cannot win and vice versa. Looking at the Lib Dem vote in G&D I think many did.
I've been wondering the same thing: where is the analysis or even recognition of the impact of tactical voting here? I'm not resident in the constituency nor aligned with any specific party but it wasn't hard for anyone with a passing interest in tactical voting to see that The Greens were (just) the logical left wing choice here. I have no illusions about the Green Party and it's leadership. They wouldn't be my first choice, but as a centre left voter I'd vote Green to defeat Reform or the Conservatives. I'm clearly not alone
Why we're the Greens the logical choice for a tactical vote when Labour won the last election there with a large majority? It was only logical once you assumed away Labour's previous dominance. Doesn't that need explaining, not taking as a given?
Might that have been the analysis by Forward Democracy? This is much what they were saying to their supporters. They now have every right to feel pretty smug about it.
Farage should focus on his neglected constituency, and I don’t mean the Chagos Islands.
Labour's heavy handed rejection of Andy Burnham as a candidate, the deeply unpleasant Reform candidate, it wasn't that hard to see that the local plumber would come through.
But it was like getting Wordle in six, phew!
It’s only another by-election with three years at least before the next GE. I think (hope) Reform have peaked. Greens need to work out what they are about and be realistic. Labour will need to get its act together around Starmer. The Tories have a mountain to climb and the Lib Dem’s need to focus their efforts to the prosperous SE. Could have been written before the results. All else is tittle tattle.
I'm suprised Peter didn't mention the startling failure of the polls. Reputable pollsters (not one's invented by the Labour Party) have been saying 'It's too close to call' for weeks now. This after their failure in the last General Election where pollsters over-estimated Labours support by 10% (or 30% of their actual vote).
WIll this teach the media not to do spend most of their time majoring on opinion polls? Trying in effect to predict the result rather than reporting on the news when it has happened.
The polls weren’t necessarily wrong. By-elections often see late swings, especially in tight contests where tactical voting comes into play. There was some late evidence that the Greens were more likely to stop Reform UK than Labour, which may have convinced anti-Reform UK Labour supporters to switch to Green at the last minute. Or maybe the polls were, indeed off. It’s not possible to know for sure.
Yes, you are right, it is not possible to know for sure which is why we should ignore the polls! A (very) last minute surge to the Greens is exteremly unlikely. Luke Tryll was on newsnight after the polls had closed saying 'its too close to call'.
I wouldn't say ignore the polls so much as be aware of their limitations. They're taking a snapshot, asking how would you vote if the election were today, not predicting what the actual result will be on election day. If I were in Gorton and Denton I would have wanted to know who was most likely to beat Reform and that's the candidate I would have voted for.
Polls are important to political parties but they are lazy lazy journalism. Of course the solution to poll mania is a proportional voting system so you can vote for what you believe rather against what you hate.
It’s not extremely unlikely at all. Late swings often occur in by-elections.
What??? even after the polls have closed??
Zero evidence here of the ‘progressive parties’ being able to orchestrate the coordinated campaign that will be essential to defeat the right in the next general election. I’m left wondering whether to weep or join the cat laughing.
Where I would disagree is that 30%, or perhaps even more, would be enough for Reform. One thing this by-election suggests is that there is a substantial majority in most seats that will vote for whoever can keep Reform out. Even if Reform can get 35% support in a seat they can still be kept out if 50% are willing to follow the tactical voting suggestions to stop them. One thing seems sure - the tactical voting sites are going to have a lot of sway at the next General Election.
Interesting analysis, thank you.
I'm quite surprised, however, that you've not heard of the Britain Predicts model before. It's a polling model developed by Britain Elects under the aegis of the New Statesman and its 'State of the Nation' blog. It's been going since 2021 and appears perfectly kosher. More info here:
https://sotn.newstatesman.com/2024/05/britainpredicts
Good advice for Labour in the closing paragraphs. Whoever is running their campaign team needs a rocket.
The EU referendum still has echoes, Gaza is a live issue but the most significant problems are those created by the previous Government and Labour has continued those themes in an attempt to outflank Reform. The progressives , have an open field for the Middle and Left grounds.
How very strange that Labour made no mention of the genuine promoters of tactical voting, Democracy First. Or perhaps not. Its very clear advice was that voting Green, not Labour, would be the best course for those wishing to stymie Reform, having conducted polling that suggested that 66% of those who count themselves as supporters of Labour or the LibDem would be prepared to do so. Both its advice and its polling were evidently spot on. It really is very strange, then, that Kellner, too, prefers not to acknowledge their existence, let alone the perspicacity now confirmed by the by-election result.
Tony Benn? Where did he spring from all of a sudden?
Tony Benn also got right the need to focus on the following four industrial sectors: machine tools, computing, telecomms and aerospace. If Ted Heath and subsequent prime ministers had stuck with this, the UK would today be far richer.
It's par for the course that Labour make up statistics but the good news is that they were well and truly thrashed. Will they learn? Unlikely. They'll double down on dishonesty and further erode the public opinion of politicians. But let me chastise you for a churlish and mean spirited comment: "One of the very few things that Tony Benn got right". I think coming from someone who's contribution to public life has been as an observer and sometime commentator this is disappointingly arrogant and petty. Tony Benn was a significant and original political figure who inspired many people and who spent his life in public service. You are of course entitled to your opinions on him, but this sort of comment reflects much more poorly on you than on him. Shame on you.