Initial response on Swindon

Andy Newman

 

Gorse Hill & Pinehurst (Roy North)		2004
Lab	825 (41%)	701 (44%)
Con	421 (22%)	429 (27%)
BNP	319 (16%)
Lib Dems	169 (8%)	275 (17%)
Ind	154 (8%)
socialist unity	109 (6%)	180 (11%)
Total	1997	1585

Increase in overall vote 412



Obviously the Gorse Hill and Pinehurst result is more disappointing than we were hoping, and the BNP vote is very worrying. The BNP vote is the big story.



Firstly congratulations to Roy on being an excellent candidate, I am sure that without him the result would have been worse that it was. In particular we definitely picked up vote from black and Asian voters who saw us as the most principled opponents of racism



All along I said that anything over 100 votes was a respectable result, and we achieved that. In parliamentary election terms anything over 5% is a saved deposit. Compared to the national results for far left candidates 6% is still a good result.



Our campaign gave us the opportunity to raise the issue of the Academy, and plans for the Pinehurst Peoples Centre. It also brought us new contacts with a number of people.



I believe our campaign was deeply affected by the BNP standing, in more than one way. The BNP had both national and local publicity that money could not buy, and it was clear when we were talking to people that race and immigration have become the top issue of many many white working class voters. This is the failure primarily of the Labour Party.



What is interesting is that we did not detect that level of BNP support when were talking to people going into the polling stations, this suggests that a lot of BNP voters are still ashamed of voting for them , and it is a protest vote. I am sure that some of the protest vote that previously went to us went to the BNP. The Independent, Clive Hunt, will also have taken votes from us, but we put an ideological alternative to New Labour, so our vote is also a vote for something, whereas both the Independent’s vote and the BNP vote are just against things.



But what was a bigger effect was that the Labour vote has gone up 124, bucking what seems to be the national trend. Labour worked very hard, including ringing up Labour voters all day. As we saw in the general election they created a false scare of a possible Tory victory to persuade reluctant labour voters to turn out. Some of the increased Labour vote will have been a reaction to the BNP standing, with Labour being a safer “stop the BNP” vote than us.



Note that the BNP vote seems to include a lot of people who did not vote last time, reflected in an increased turnout.



So our vote was squeezed in three directions by circumstances beyond our control.

i) The BNP attracting a racist protest vote.

ii) Clive Hunt standing as an Independent (The Ernie Roberts factor)

iii) The anti BNP vote going to Labour



But we cannot just blame outside circumstances. Although we fought the best and most professional campaign we have so far done, it is also true that if we are honest we only ever do any work in the ward at election time, and there was no local election in Gorse Hill and Pinehurst in 2005. I think this is the biggest factor behind our lack of progress.

Although we are a campaigning group, we campaign on lots of Swindon wide issues, but not specifically in the wards we are targeting for election. So we do what all the other politicians do, just turn up at elections and ask for votes. Add to which the fact that we do not have an established and recognised electoral name.



But on a positive note. The three main parties are basically standing on exactly the same policies, and presenting no alternative. Working class people are deeply alienated by the fact that they feel the whole political system lets them down. We have done a good job of promoting a positive alternative message, Roy is a well known and liked candidate, but it is not yet translating into enough votes.



But the BNP result shows more than ever the need to present that positive alternative.



And a good start in Western first time we stood there.

 

Western Ward (Andy Newman)		2004
Lib Dems	417 (16%)	251 (11%)
Con	870 (33%)	805 (33%)
Lab	1226 (46%)	928 (38%)
Socialist Unity	135 (5.1%)
Green		121 (5%)
UKIP		311 (13%)
Total	1997	1585

 

May 2006

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