🚨 BREAKING: Tories comfortably in the lead over Labour in the Hartlepool by-election, according to a new poll Via @thetimes
Posted Apr 5, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC
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Starmer’s whole thing has been trying to appeal solely to the kind of people the leadership believe live in Hartlepool. If he can’t manage a hold here what’s the point of him?
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Quite. We've spent the last 12 months allegedly making compromises solely in favour of this sort of voter. If the net result of that is +4% on our 2019 result (the 'worst result since 1935' as we're regularly reminded) and coming in comfortably behind the Tories, it shows a severe failure of that strategy.
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But what other strategy is there?
It's not a great strategy but nobody is able to give a strategy that will actually work.
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Focus on 2017 style politics with more party unity and better organisation. You know, the thing that he campaigned for leader on the basis of.
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How long till the briefing is attacking the NIP and the left wing of the party for this
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The NIP discourse fulfils my favourite point of Eco's Ur-Fascism
by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.
NIP are at the same time splitting the vote and condemning us to the tories, while also being an irrelevant meme party who will crash and burn with no votes.
Same was done to Corbyn actually. Corbyn was both a Stalinist leader carrying out purges in the party, while at the same time his backbenchers undermining him were proof of his weakness and inability to get people under control.
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In a FPTP system, they can both be true. Taking enough votes that would have otherwise gone to Labour to make it easier for the Tories to win while also not taking enough votes to get anywhere near winning themselves. Acknowledging that is not fascism whatever some out-of-context quote from Reddit's Favourite Book says.
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Never said it was fascism.
It’s just interesting.
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You didn't literally say that it was fascism, but you invoked a text that aims to define fascism, and the part you quoted was one of the 14 points the author lists as features of fascism. The implication is clear even if you didn't intend it.
If you are not arguing that "smaller parties can hurt bigger parties even if they have no chance of winning themselves in an FPTP system" is a fascist statement, then I don't really see how it is interesting that it vaguely* fulfills one of the 14 presented elements of fascism.
*Actually, I would say the statement is more about FPTP than NIP's strength as a electoral force. NIP is not both too weak and overwhelmingly strong. It is weak but our current system means that a weak force can change the outcome of a close vote. "Too weak but also too strong" would be claiming that it is an irrelevant meme party while also fearing that it could win.
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NIP are at the same time splitting the vote and condemning us to the tories, while also being an irrelevant meme party who will crash and burn with no votes.
Which of these do you believe isn't true?
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I don't think that really matters.
What I do know is that both, in their hyperbolic nature, cannot be true at the same time.
NIP might be pretty much irrelevant sure and they might in a few seats get enough votes to influence a result, but 'splitting the vote and condemning us to the tories, while at the same time crashing and burning with no votes' can't both be true.
I mean it is literally impossible for a party with no votes to split the vote so, yeah.
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Who's saying they're not going to get any votes?
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Would this also be the case for like saying how the Lib Dems are irrelevant but then also saying the Lib Dems cost us Kensington?
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It depends. If people saying the Lib Dems are irrelevant mean that they will get no votes then yeah it is the case.
But I think most of the time ‘irrelevant’ for the Lib Dems still means a lot of votes and a few seats whereas ‘irrelevant’ for NIP literally means like 100 votes total.
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100 votes still could be enough to 'split' the vote, and to be clear if it was the case we lose the election by less than the votes NIP have that's on us. Though the constituency poll produced even Lab+NIP we still lose.
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NIP are on 2%. Even in this awful result Labour would have gained twice that. They're not the reason Labour loses (if it they do).
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Makes you wonder, if Starmer is losing votes in places like Hartlepool, where is he gaining votes? The assumption was that even if vote share doesn't change, losing votes in major cities and gaining them elsewhere would still be a positive for Labour. But this seems to be wrecking that theory.
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where is he gaining votes?
We're winning over middle-class Lib Dems in cities and the south while alienating both the party base and voters elsewhere. Polling has consistently shown we're out-performing our national trends in both London and the South East.
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I'm gonna guess that Labour are increasing their vote share from 2019 - but the tories are eating into the vast majority of the BXP vote share
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A ~70% leave voting constituency not wanting to vote in a remainer MP.
Colour me entirely unsurprised.
...Labour yet again massively failing to 'read the room'.
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Hey, he won the nomination fair and square... after the leadership intervened to ensure his was the only name on the ballot.
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Yup. Where's that Picard meme when you need it.
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We're pretty fucked if this does happen. The Tories solidifying their grip - and even making gains - in the north is curtains for us. I don't really know how we'd ever win a majority again.
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Hot take:
Labour is getting as divided and messy as the Tory party, but without the clear uniting factor of everyone being a selfish prick. Pretty soon it's going to fall apart and some other party is going to take up the role of opposition, maybe a splinter of the Labour party. Whether this party will be like the American Liberals (Conservatives but less,) hardline marxist, or anywhere in between, I have no idea. But it's clear that Labour can't continue being a thing in its current state. The tensions are growing and they have to be released somehow, and I would not be particularly surprised if it happens before the next general election.
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I stand by my belief that Starmer is surrounded by people who exist entirely in the Westminster media bubble. He needs working-class advisors who know what to say, how to say it, and where to go all-in/back away.
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Now how much of this is due to the (sigh) "vaccine bounce" and how of it it due to Williams being a pretty terrible candidate? Personally think the scales come down further on 'Williams is shit, and a remainer, and pro-Saudi' side.
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Doesn’t exactly absolve Starmer given the candidate was imposed
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Oh yes of course, forgot about that. No idea why Hartlepool CLP wasn't given a democratic choice in the matter.
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Surely more likely Brexit party voters rewarding the Tories for giving them Brexit?
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The polls suggest that Labour has increased its vote share since 2019 in Hartlepool, but that the Tories have increased theirs by 20 points because the Brexit Party is no longer standing.
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Hmmm I low-key still expect us to keep Hartlepool.
Look at survation’s constituency polling around 2019 election campaign - they had Lib Dem’s winning portsmouth south (they ended on 11%), Labour winning Gedling by 5% (lost by 1.5%), had Lib Dem’s winning Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire (they won neither), and were off on the Reading West result by 16%. And there’s others but I got bored
Now I’m all for dragging keir and Labour if we lose but can we take this with a pinch of salt please!!! (Not realistic but boy can dream)
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Wasn't a lot of Survation's constituency polling done like 3 months out from the election, and from before Labour took a stance in support of a Second Referendum? They were always going to be incredibly skewed results, a prime example of push polling if I've ever seen it.
The question is: what is Labour going to do now? It's not like we've got a manifesto to launch as we did in 2019. Hell, we barely have any fucking policies to speak of.
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A couple of the Lib Dem ones were like a week or two before election was officially announced but everyone knew one was coming cos government was pushing for one. But the Gedling and reading west were done about a month out I think
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Hartlepool, constituency voting intention:
CON: 49% (+20)
LAB: 42% (+4)
NIP: 2% (+2)
LDEM: 1% (-3)
REFUK: 1% (-25)
GRN: 1% (+1)
via @Survation
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1379207704112156677?s=21
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NIP above Lib Dems lmao
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Teehee, excellent.
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Sigh
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He’s in trouble if that happens.
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He should be, but I'm sure the PLP and their media wing will just go 'grumble grumble guess he should sack Dodds'
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We’re mudded.
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The poll’s methodology is ridiculous, I’d completely discount it
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Labour shouldn't be losing seats in by-elections 11 years into opposition. It will be incredibly damaging to Keir's leadership to lose a seat Corbyn won twice as LOTO.
I know Labour barely ever replaces leaders like the Tories but this result is the sort of result that might mean Keir has to resign before the next election.
Polling like this should at least hopefully make Keir attack the Tories more and outline a vision. Supporting them is probably destroying our electoral prospects now.
In a weird way I wouldn’t be disappointed if Labour was to lose this seat if meant leadership change.
I mean there ain't much difference between 263 Tories in Parliament and 264.
There is a big difference between 12 months of Starmer leadership and 4 years worth.
I'm conflicted. A Labour loss proves Starmer's strategy is rubbish but probably also means that Dodds will be replaced with Reeves and Jess Phillips, Streeting and Cooper are promoted to the cabinet moving Labour even further to the right.
That'd just be doubling down on a failed strategy.
If Corbyn can hang on after losing Copeland, Keir can hang on after losing Hartlepool.
labour would have lost it in 2019 if it wasn't for the bxp? we got lucky
That's right but Keir has spent his leadership trying to appeal to ex labour voters who switched to Tory in 2019. If he loses Hartlepool it will be proof that either his strategy isn't good enough or his leadership isn't.
Voters won't notice things like the Brexit Party splitting the vote in 2019. Keir will be branded a loser who managed to lose a seat even Corbyn didn't. He won't be able to spin it in his favour.
the tories had a national pact with them in 2019
It Makes sense, Labour lost the majority of the vote in this area in 2010. Ever since then UKIP/BXT have been vote splitting with the tories, now that’s gone, I’m not surprised. This has been a decade in the making
Unfortunately because Corbyn didn’t resign after the Copeland by-election, it will probably set the precedent that a leader should stay on even if they lose a by-election in a former safe seat
Starmer isn't going to resign a year in. He should go if these results persist into late-2022/early-2023 but one year in is too early.
I agree. I doubt he resigns and Labour are awful at replacing leaders anyway.
Keir's authority will be really damaged by this though and will probably make it almost impossible for him to convince people that he can win the next election.
For people wanting Keir to step down already, do you have someone in mind you would like to replace him?
rayner lewis mcdonnell