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Bye-Bye By-Election Blues

Jessica Allen
Feb 24, 2017
4 min read

Thursday was a by-election day - but what exactly is a by-election, what does it mean, what happened?

Thankfully, there's a blog to take you through the basics. Thank me later :)

Every five years, the country votes for who they want to be their local representative in the House of Commons - this is their MP and the process is called a General Election.

When something happens to the MP in between those five years - maybe they resign for another job, resign from their political party, or sadly they pass away - a by-election is called. This is where the people local to that area (in the MP's constituency) can elect a new MP to represent them.

So, on Thursday (23rd February) there were two by-elections in the constituencies of:

Stoke-on-Trent Central - their MP was Labour's Tristram Hunt, who resigned to take up a new position at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Copeland - their MP was also Labour, called Jamie Reed. He resigned to take up a job in the nuclear industry.

As both of these were previously seats held by the Labour Party, it was important for the party to keep a hold of them, so that they had the same amount of representatives in the House of Commons. By-elections are important as they can show how the people in a local area feel the main political parties are working and how well the Government is doing its job.

So, we've got through the main bit, are you still with us? Good. Here's a celebratory gif.

Now for a bit of context (a history lesson if you like. Sorry) - UKIP has had two MPs. One is called Douglas Carswell, who used to be Conservative, and Mark Reckless who also used to be Conservative but lost his UKIP seat in the 2015 General Election - he's now a member of the Welsh Assembly. They were both elected in by-elections where they won back their own seat but as a member of another party.

After the result to leave the European Union, UKIP leader Nigel Farage resigned as party leader and said his work was done. UKIP - full name UK Independence Party - then elected a woman called Diane James as their leader. You might not have heard of her, as she lasted eighteen, EIGHTEEN, days. While UKIP tried to work out what the fuck they were going to do next, Farage came back as leader. Then, after another election, Paul Nuttall was elected as the new, solid, UKIP leader. So, here's all three of them - not together, unfortunately...

So, as a show of his might, new leader Paul Nuttall announced he would stand in the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election - Stoke-on-Trent being a place which voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU (at 69.4% of the population) and seemed interested in UKIP. Obviously this was worrying for Labour, especially when not as many people seem to like their leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

As you may have seen elsewhere (see my Ctrl Alt Facts and Delete News post), Paul Nuttall was outed to be a liar when he said that he had lost close friends in the Hillsborough disaster, which killed almost 100 people. It didn't stop there, though - Nuttall was then mocked relentlessly for this "alternative fact" with further #paulnuttallfacts. I'm picking my personal favourites...

Eventually, Nuttall apologised for lying about having a personal connection to the Hillsborough disaster, but claimed he was a victim of a smear campaign.

After polls closed at 10pm on Thursday evening, a full count began and the result at Stoke Central went as follows...

(I love how the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate is SO HAPPY with getting a few votes)

Paul Nuttall, UKIP - 5,233 votes Gareth Snell, Labour - 7,853

Turnout: 38.16%

So Labour 'held' their seat - meaning they kept the seat they had had before - despite reports that Labour candidate (now MP) Snell called Jeremy Corbyn an "IRA-supporting friend of Hamas" and described Brexit as a "massive pile of shit"... This is bad news for UKIP, who expected to win this seat given the opinion of the EU in the constituency - especially when their own leader cannot get elected. Paul Nuttall has said that he is going nowhere despite the failure. The turnout (how many people, out of those entitled to vote, actually voted) was actually quite high for Stoke.

The other by-election, Copeland (which is in Cumbria) had a slightly different result:

Gillian Troughton, Labour - 11,601 votes

Trudy Harrison, Conservative - 13,748

Turnout: 51.27%

So this is known as a Conservative 'gain' - they won the seat from the Labour Party, which could indicate that people in that area favour the Conservative Party (who are in Government) over Labour. This is particularly worrying for the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. It's the first time a governing party has won a by-election from a seat held by another party in over 35 years - so it's a huge deal.

Does this make sense? Are you feeling more confident with the election jargon? I hope so...