September 28, 2007

Thursday's by-elections - nondescript performance by BNP

There are just three local council by-elections on which to comment this week, the British National Party contesting two of them but failing to put in a promised appearance in a third.

Both seats the BNP did contest were virgin territory for them, leaving us unable to measure their performance against previous outings.

Chester-le-Street Central ward saw a strong Labour vote on May 3rd, its two candidates garnering 42.07% and 39.52% respectively, leaving a lone Local Conservative to scrape a meagre 18.12%. Thursday's contest was more straightforward. In a dismal 25% turnout a single Labour candidate took nearly 60%, and while the Conservatives lost 2% on May, the intervention of LibDem and BNP candidates sucked enough votes from Labour to give them 14.89% and 9.38% each.

Chester-le-Street Central ward result (percentages on right):

Lab 324 59.56
Con 88 16.18
LibDem 81 14.89
BNP 51 9.38



Total 544



With nothing to compare the BNP's Central ward vote against, it is difficult to assess its importance. Their 9.38% does not begin to approach the 20%-plus gained in similar first-time outings in Nuneaton and Whitehaven last week, however the pitiful turnout and that fact that the party did not contest the nearby Washington East ward by-election - allowing it to concentrate its resources - worked in the BNP's favour.

The BNP did contest Washington East in May, receiving only 6.29% of the vote. Reasons for not contesting this time were that the party missed the nominations deadline, and that it wanted to concentrate on Chester-le-Street Central. Either excuse could be true - or it might be that the party was worried that on current trends even May's 6.29% would be eroded down to something even more embarrassing.

Whatever the reason, the abandonment of Washington East can only mean that the BNP believed it could do very much better in Chester-le-Street Central - if an improvement of slightly over 3% in a very low poll can be said to be anything of the kind. Though the outcome is hardly pleasing to us, this nondescript result can hardly be pleasing to the BNP, particularly as the local party organisation was able to concentrate resources into the ward.

BNP hopes in Lloyd's ward (Corby), an electoral division of Northamptonshire County Council, were for a 20% vote. As with Chester-le-Street Central, Lloyd's ward was virgin territory for the BNP, and we know (because they have told us) that a half-way professional campaign was mounted, which included some determined canvassing. As we noted last week in our remarks on Nuneaton Abbey ward, there must be something amiss with the BNP's electoral machine, since whatever the party's canvass returns were telling it, less than 13% of Lloyd's ward's electors (on a 30.7% turnout) voted for the BNP.

Northants CC Lloyd's ward (Corby) result:

Lab 1093 53.47
Con 375 18.35
LibDem 311 15.22
BNP 265 12.96



Total 2044

Neither the Chester-le-Street Central nor Northants CC Lloyd's ward results are particularly instructive, though we can note with a certain amount of satisfaction that the BNP expected to do better. Washington East would have given us a more realistic indication of the party's fortunes, but we must wait until next week when the BNP will be contesting some previously fought wards for a more productive analysis of its ongoing electoral performance.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't been on this site for a week or so because of holidays but I've come back to a great new look, a selection of excellent articles from a variety of writers and loads of interesting comments from both sides. Keep up the good work LUAF, you're doing an excellent job and you're keeping us all well-informed about the activities of the 'riff-raff'. Congratulations to all of you and thanks from a punter.

Anonymous said...

Haha. I see the NNP poll was roundly disputed. Take into account her small number of cronies, 2 at the most were probably voting each day, i reckon you can take 20& off. Which makes it fairly even.

Considering the NNP's low web hits, the fact that they can't even rig a poll suggests something worrying.

Should London's Parliament Square have a statue of Nelson Mandela?
Votes Ratio
Yes 48 31%
No 109 69%
157 votes total

Also, when is ebanks going to come up with the goods she keeps claiming to have. She is getting very old and tiring.

Unknown said...

Is the far-Right fighting a by-election in your locality? If its is, then reports of both fascist and anti-fascist activities on the ground (together with scans of any relevant newspaper clippings) will help us form a better picture of these elections.

This is also a good time to remind everybody that we could well be involved in a general election in the next few weeks, and despite Nick Griffin posting that "we [the BNP] do not [stand] a snowball’s chance in hell of winning seats" in a blog entry almost designed to warn away BNP branches from running candidates, there is every prospect that many of them will. We would appreciate regular feedback from the constituencies concerned.

Info can be sent to the LUAF email address or to my own (just follow my blogger link). You probably won't receive much by way of thanks, as we expect to be very busy during the election period, but every little helps!

Anonymous said...

in response to denise, there is no way dicky is going let the chance of standing as an MP go by, even though they have no money, he is such a diva, so there will be bags full of comment coming your way from barking & dagenham.

all paid for by those of us who collect dickys empties and take them back.

Anonymous said...

Apart from the mention of having been on holiday, I agree with every word that Alan said.

Anonymous said...

The BNP isn't performing in council elections when you look into it but I think anything over 10% is too much. We've got get the facist vote back down to 5% but too many anti-fascists think somebody else is going to do the job for them. Get off your arses.

Half of our problem is that the BNP is one party and everything it does is synched. When you look at us all welve got is a lot of websites and nothing is synched. It's all adhoc, even the UAF site doesn't tell you anything till it's happened.

Anonymous said...

What's happened to the moderation? Got a touch of the censors have we? I made five comments and none of them appeared. Your choice but if you censor you opposition your not much better than Nazis yourselves.

Unknown said...

What happened to the moderation?

I did.

What other moderators allow through on their watch is their decision.

On mine attempts by creeps and cretins to use this anti-fascist blog to peddle their bigotted wares won't happen.

Keep to the topic, keep it polite and you have a chance, otherwise take a hike over to one of the dozens of BNP blogs and have a whine there.

Anonymous said...

@ Denise.

Bossy boots!

Overdue, but I hope you're going to let their most suicidal comments through.

Unknown said...

@ Dan

Yes.

Anonymous said...

so no free speech here then. Whose the facist now?

Anonymous said...

Serial loser Mark Collett will stand in Leeds, just so people can take the piss out of this Hitler-loving homophobic yet gay hypocrite.

Anonymous said...

Collett Is A Wanker said...
Serial loser Mark Collett will stand in Leeds, just so people can take the piss out of this Hitler-loving homophobic yet gay hypocrite.


With his comments about Hitler how can the BNP even consider standing him.

Griffin got elected as leader due to Tyndalls past, Colletts is just as bad.

Plus he IS a wanker. A little twat. Kick him out of the BNP