Apart from the BNP in Sedgefield, everybody lost.
There could not be two constituencies less alike that Sedgefield and Ealing Southall, yet Labour managed to lose ludicrous numbers of votes (eleven thousand in Sedgefield, even without counting defections to other candidates) in both of them. That by-election turnouts are lower is one thing, but this is just ridiculous. It could not now be clearer that in areas as different as these two, a new political movement has huge numbers of potential voters just waiting to be reached.
The Lib Dems failed to take Ealing Southall, as did "David Cameron's Conservatives" with their imposed New Labour candidate, so Campbell is in trouble and Cameron's position is now untenable. Third at Ealing Southall was matched by third (down from second in 2005) at Sedgefield: Cameron has no appeal either in one of the most diverse parts of London or in a ninety-nine per cent White British corner of the North. In short, he has no appeal.
But the BNP kept its deposit at Sedgefield. The traditional Labour vote is crying out for a non-racist (indeed, anti-racist) opposition to the intimately related forces of European federalism, American domination, globalisation, Islamisation, mass immigration, the undermining of the family, and soft lines on crime, drugs and antisocial behaviour. Otherwise, it will just vote for the BNP out of sheer despair.
So look out for the BNP at the 2009 European Elections, when only the movement of which I am part can prevent their breakthrough in Yorkshire & The Humber or in the East Midlands (quite plausible - they'd need only one sixth of the votes of those who felt sufficiently motivated to turn out); in the West Midlands, in the South West or in East Anglia (very likely - only one seventh required to win a seat); in the North West or in London (highly probable - only one ninth required); and, above all, in the South East (practically certain, with only one in 10 of those who feel sufficiently strongly to vote at all needing to vote BNP in order to put them in).
Blair's legacy. And Brown's. And Cameron's.
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The BNP talked up their Euro chanes last time and failed.
ReplyDeleteThere is one reason why they did better in Sedgefield and that was because their candidate had a high profile already. He was one of the main organisers of the fuel protests in the North East in 2000.
I've known him for years, and I can assure that that won't have been the reason.
ReplyDeleteEverywhere in County Durham might look the same from Norfolk, but everywhere in Norfolk might look the same from County Durham.
Create a "neither Labour nor the Tories" alternative both to the Lib Dems and to the BNP, and they are both finished.
Are you joining forces with Neil Herron in the North East?
ReplyDeleteIf you are, then you have a chance in 2009.
If not, then you are doomed to failure.
I don't see you making any headway in Wales, Scotland or Ulster. As for the other English regions, you will be squeezed by better organised small parties and other independents.
Wouldn't it be better to join something already existing, than strike out on your own?
I'd love to get Neil Herron formally on board. I really don't expect him to stand again: the ballot box is where he has always made his least impact, being hugely effective elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, he has now won his one big battle. I think that he would make an excellent Crossbench Peer, but he has never had any desire to launch a new political movement across the board.
I can't see which small parties are better-organised than we are going to be. On the contrary, like the (relatively) large parties, they are organisational basket-cases.
I have no fear of being "squeezed" by the Lib Dems, whom we could very largely replace (we certainly could in the North East) simply by being neither Labour nor the Tories, and simply by subjecting actual Lib Dem policies (not least on the EU) to unaccustomed and unwanted exposure, those policies having been formulated on the assumption that no one would ever examine them.
I have no fear of being "squeezed" by Respect or by the Greens, instead expecting that we will pick up the votes of people who might have voted for the former (if at all) despite thoroughly disliking both Trotskyism and Islam, and that we will pick up the votes of those who might have voted for the latter (if at all) despite being deeply unconvinced that the solution to all the world's ills is the destruction of the high-wage, high-skilled, high-status jobs of the working class, accompanied by the prevention of people on modest incomes from travelling, and the halting or even reversal of economic development in the poorer parts of the world.
I have no fear of being "squeezed" by UKIP, instead expecting to pick up at least the Old Labour half of its vote last time, with the recent by-elections in any case indicating that UKIP barely exists any more (and that the English Democrats never really did).
And I have no fear of being "squeezed" by the BNP, instead expecting to pick up every vote that might have gone to it out of sheer despair this time, rather than out of any genuine belief in racial theory or Holocaust denial, views certainly not held by, say, 2500 people in Sedgefield.
Whom does that leave?
In Scotland, the North and the Midlands, our position is that of great swathes of the population. The English-speaking vote is just waiting to be taken in what is otherwise the land of the four Plaid Cymrus.
The pro-Union forty to forty-four per cent of Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the large social-democratic constituency among Unionists there, have been sleeping giants for decades, just waiting to be woken by anyone prepared to give them anyone to vote for; with STV in use for the the three seats there, at least third place seems certain, and even second place should not be ruled out.
And so on, around the country.
As for joining what's already there, there is nothing already there, hence the need for this movement.
I think you are deluding yourself.
ReplyDeleteHerron will stand in the NE and cut the ground from beneath you.
However, Herron's epicentre is Sunderland (2nd place in the Euros last time)and the further you move away from Sunderland, the fewer votes he gets. The same will apply to you, but on a much smaller (1/2%) scale.
Unless you and your mates have a couple of hundred K to spend, your eleborate policy platform won't make the slightest difference, since no one will know what it is.
Independents only suceed in big elections when the individual has some voter recognition (see Sedgefield - last two elections). So unless you have a Kilroy-Silk up your sleeve, either don't bother or join one of the smaller parties.
Watch this space...
ReplyDeleteOh, and which "small parties", exactly, Jack? (They are all rather small now, anyway.) I thought I'd dealt with them.
ReplyDeleteNorfolk Blogger: the BNP were pretty close in the last Euros. And they have since followed their strategy of poisoning new areas each time.
ReplyDeleteDavid: Labour cannot be said to have lost 11,000 off their majority. Except perhaps in terms of those who stayed at home in the numbers customary in most by-elections.
The rest of these comments almost seem like you talking to yourself.