A tale of two momentous by-elections

As was expected the United Kingdom Independence Party now has its first elected MP. Douglas Carswell the popular former Conservative MP has been re-elected as a UKIP representative for the seaside town of Clacton On Sea. Mr Carswell’s return to the House of Commons was not completely unexpected, he had polled well in pre-election surveys and UKIP was doing well in getting those who had not voted for years out to vote.

The major drama of this night of two by-elections was to be found in the previously safe Labour seat of Heywood and Middleton where UKIP trounced all opposition and managed to come within 617 votes of defeating the Labour candidate. Heywood and Middleton has been for years a safe Labour seat with Labour kept in power because of tribal and intergenerational voting patterns, the whipped mosque votes and possibly bent postal votes. For Labour to come within less than a thousand votes of losing a seat like this shows that there are a growing number of people who now realise that the Labour party is no longer the party of choice for Britain’s working classes, especially the indigenous working classes.

The vote in Heywood and Middleton was so close that a recount was requested by UKIP and I would not be surprised to find that post election analysis showed that some of Labour’s 617 winning votes were bogus. To come so close to winning a seat in an area mired in political and alleged electoral corruption is a mighty achievement, probably an achievement greater than that of Douglas Carswell, who started from a much higher approval base. Probably the last time there was an electoral upset like this was when Shirley Williams of the Social Democratic Party managed to take the previously safe Tory seat of Crosby in 1981.

There have been various social media reports of dirty tricks from Labour in Heywood and Middleton, including smashing the mobile phone of a UKIP worker to prevent them filming what UKIP said were electoral abuses. Labour are scared that they could lose seats like Heywood and Middleton where they could previously rely on the combination of bent postal votes and docile intergenerational tribal Labour voters. Because they are frightened Labour are playing dirty. They must be concerned that a ‘new broom’ in the form of a non-Labour MP would expose all the dodgy shenanigans that Labour councils in the North of England have been allegedly involved in.

Maybe the electorate is waking up to the fact that the Labour party is quite happy to turn a blind eye to gangs of Muslims raping the daughters of working class British people, are fiscally inept, and often treat ordinary people and their views, hopes and fears, with utter contempt.

If there is one group of people who I wish to criticise in the Heywood and Middleton by-election it is those who did not bother to get out and vote. Only 36.02% of the eligible voters bothered to make their voices known in this contest. If just 5% more voters had turned out and voted for UKIP then the people of Heywood and Middleton would not be facing the prospect of being represented for the next few months, by yet another politically correct Labour drone. This contest shows just how vital it is to get out and vote for any political alternative to the Big Two plus the Lib Dems.

Remember if you don’t vote, then the scum will get back in again.

Congratulations to all those who worked hard for UKIP on both the Clacton and Heywood campaigns, it just shows that there are alternatives to what the mainstream parties serve up.

1 Comment on "A tale of two momentous by-elections"

  1. john warren | October 10, 2014 at 9:46 am |

    Good, well observed post.

    Couldn’t agree more. Especially so with regard to the fraud potential when our MPs get into power via postal voting. It must be hard for some criminally inclined voters to resist the temptation to register from several addresses… a friends, a family member, a sex partner, etc.

    Getting on the voter’s register in this country is incredibly easy. Few if any checks are carried out by registrars or local council staff.

    Similar risks for the tax payer have become evidenced now that benefits are paid directly into a recipient’s bank account. It’s a little more difficult for a fraudster to milk this particular cash-cow but once the milk starts to flow, the temptation to latch onto other juicy teats by claiming from sham addresses becomes too great a temptation for many cash-strapped citizens.

    Being identified by staff, or more often reported by other customers, when collecting cash from several post offices in the old days kept such fraud largely in check.

Comments are closed.