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u/denyer-no1-fan

▲ 167 r/LabourUK

Yet another u-turn from Andy Burnham, he is no different from Starmer, just with a northern accent

So far he has u-turned on:

  • Rejoining the EU

  • Pushing for proportional representation

  • Rachel Reeves' fiscal rules

  • Shabana Mahmood's immigration plans

and now

How is he different from the current lot? At this rate I hope he loses so there is small chance Rayner wins the leadership race. Although she will probably row back on a lot of the stuff she said as well

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u/denyer-no1-fan — 1 day ago
▲ 6 r/LabourPartyUK

YouGov Labour members polling: On Keir Starmer, should he: Take party into next election 28%, Remain as leader until closer to GE 33%, Step down no / in months 33%

u/denyer-no1-fan — 5 days ago
▲ 52 r/UKGreens

A reminder to all: constitutionally, the local party is responsible for fielding a candidate, not the Green Party of England and Wales

So many people seem to forget that subsidiarity is a key principle of Green Party organisation. In the constitution, it's clear:

>Where one or more local Green Parties cover a constituency the procedure for selection of a candidate must ensure the following:
that the prospective candidate is democratically selected by all Green Party members resident in the constituency except that the relevant Local Party/ies may take a formal decision to ballot their whole membership(s). If agreement cannot be reached between all the Local Parties concerned on who should be balloted then the default position shall be to ballot members in the constituency only.

Caroline Lucas' and anyone else's intervention are unhelpful and undermines the decision made by the local party.

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u/denyer-no1-fan — 7 days ago
▲ 2 r/UKGreens

Lots of discussion about which seat Andy Burnham has apparently secured for his route back to Westminster but I'm told it is Manchester Rusholme, currently held by Afzal Khan.

As I understand it Khan is prepared to step down but will not make a final decision until after Wes Streeting launches his expected leadership bid.

Khan backed Burnham for Labour leader in 2015 when he was North West MEP. He has publicly campaigned for Burnham’s reelection as mayor of Greater Manchester and they have worked together on constituency issues. He had previously denied he was going to stand aside.

Winning a by-election in the constituency would not be straightforward for Burnham, though. The Greens came in second place in Khan’s seat at the general election and have since surged in the polls,and at last week’s local election comfortably won every ward in the seat – picking up 11,800 votes in the area to Labour’s 6,900 votes.

Khan's position as of tonight is: "At the last General Election, the people of Manchester Rusholme put their trust in me to represent them in Parliament, and that is the job I am focused on doing."

We'll see if that changes tomorrow.

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u/denyer-no1-fan — 10 days ago
▲ 9 r/LabourUK

On election night, if you down a shot every time a Labour politician or supporter says “every government suffers losses in local elections”, you’ll have a blood alcohol level higher than the Labour vote share by midnight. Even quicker if you go for doubles every time a specific allusion is made to 1999 or 2000. To be fair, unlike a lot of received elections wisdom in Westminster, it is largely true, being so about four times out of five. But to be more accurate, there isn’t a single plausible prediction that places Labour’s expected losses anywhere near the average one in six for a government, particularly those that build off council by-election results, where Labour has lost three quarters of the seats it was defending in the last year.

As such, Labour’s benchmarks are really which historical records they are breaking:

-463: takes Labour below the average rate of defence for a government over the last sixty local elections

-880: worse than Labour’s rate of defence at the 2000 local elections, their worst during New Labour’s first term in office

-1,040: worse than the Conservatives’ rate of defence at the 1981 local elections, the lowest rate for a government that was subsequently re-elected

-1,232: worse than the Conservatives’ rate of defence at the 2024 local elections, also placing their performance in the top 10 worst defences for a government over the last sixty years

-1,350: roughly takes Labour below 25% of all councillors for the first time since prior to the 2011 local elections

-1,687: worse than Labour’s rate of defence from last year

-1,700: worse than Labour’s rate of defence at the 2009 local elections, their worst on record

-1,745: worse than the Conservatives’ rate of defence from last year, currently the worst on record for either party

-1,763: worse than the SNP’s rate of defence at the 1980 local elections, the worst for any significant party except UKIP during their post-Brexit implosion

-2,000: roughly takes Labour below the 21.4% of councillors held after the 2009 local elections, their lowest point in recent times

-2,078: worse than the Conservatives’ seat losses as a proportion of all seats from last year, the worst on record, making it close to inarguable Labour have suffered the worst local election result for any party ever

-2,150: worse than the Conservatives’ actual net seat loss at the 1995 local elections, the highest number for any party since local government reform in the 1970s (13,000 seats were up for election that year)

-2,250: roughly takes Labour below 20% of all councillors (which would also likely mean that no party holds more than a fifth of all councillors)

Additionally, some individual losses would hold particular historical value. Labour’s at-risk majorities on Barnsley, Gateshead, Sunderland and Wakefield councils have been maintained since the authorities were created in their present form in the 1970s, with control of Barnsley and Gateshead’s predecessor councils having even survived Labour’s nadir in the late 1960s. Barking and Dagenham is the only London borough Labour has retained majority control of since its creation in 1964, including at the 1968 elections where Labour won outright in just three of the 32 boroughs [10]. Indeed, the 1968 London result is one to keep top of mind as the results come in, as Labour falling as low as they did then in either councils (largest party on four, of which three had majorities) or councillors (350) would be the point at which a dire result would become bordering on existential.

Beyond seat and council losses, Labour will also be hoping to avoid falling to fifth place on the projected shares, which is a real possibility, though due to the aforementioned differences in voting patterns would not necessarily indicate they would’ve finished fifth in a contemporaneous general election (fourth would be more accurate, providing there isn’t an unexpected Lib Dem surge). Vote share in London will also be test of the party’s shape. As they have viability in more of the capital’s various party systems than any other party, coming first could still be possible even if they lose on every council. Sinking below the 28% won in 2006 would be their worst vote share to date across the boroughs, while not finishing in the top two would be a disaster, especially coming on the same day as such a result in Wales.

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u/denyer-no1-fan — 19 days ago
▲ 3 r/UKGreens

Yesterday on BBC Newcast, it was said that Green officials are worried about expectation management, that while we are expected to do well, we won't be hitting the expectation our members are looking for. After all, we've been on an upward trajectory for eight months now, if we perform below what our members expect it may be a real blow to our morale.

As someone with a little insider knowledge, what is our expectation in 3 days time?

TLDR:

Election Disappointing* Day Alright Day Joyful Day
Holyrood <8 8-11 12+
Senedd <3 3-6 7+
London <250 250-350 350+
Everywhere else <300 300-400 400+

*Disappointing in relation to current expectations, it would've still been a record-breaking day for the Greens.

HOLYROOD ELECTIONS

In 2021, Scottish Greens got 8 seats with 8.1% of the regional votes. Since then, we have climbed to around 10-13% in the polls in Scotland, behind Labour, Reform and SNP, but level with Tories and the Lib Dems.

MRPs for this election expect us to win around 7 to 14 seats. A reasonable expectation for us is to win 10 seats. If we maintain or lose seats it will be an underperformance, if we beat either the Tories or Labour, or both it will be an overperformance.

SENEDD ELECTIONS

In 2026, Welsh Greens got 4.4% of the vote with no seats. Coming into 2025 we were aiming for 1 seat on the Senedd as a historic breakthrough, but we have now climbed to around 10% in opinion polls in Wales, behind Plaid, Reform and Labour, but ahead of/level with Tories and Lib Dems.

MRPs for this election expect us to win between 4 to 10 seats. A reasonable expectation here is to win 5 seats, but any seat count more than one is already performing better than our goal set last year. I don't think we are expected to win 10 seats as YouGov was predicting about two months ago.

LONDON ELECTIONS

With 1,800+ councillors up for re-election and 5 parties + independents contesting with varying strength across the city, it is very difficult to predict how we will do. But there are some projections out there, PollCheck projects us to gain 300 councillors, JL Partners and YouGov London polling suggests we will gain between 300 to 350 councillors. There was a "poll" by Bombe published about 2 months ago that projects us to gain 550 councillors, but I don't think anyone in GPEW put much faith is this projection.

A reasonable expectation for us is to win 250-350 councillors and 1 London borough mayor in London. If we don't win any mayoralties it will be a disappointment, whereas winning more than one is considered a good day for us. The range here is big because London voters get 3 (sometimes 4) votes, making projection at a ward-level difficult.

EVERYWHERE ELSE

Outside London, there are about 3,000 councillors up for re-election. Our biggest battlegrounds are likely Kirklees, Bradford, Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham, some of them having all-out elections. But we are not expected to do very well in across the board because our votes are simply not distributed efficiently. In 2022, we only won 2.6% of the seats with 11% of the vote. With an expected vote share of 15-18%, we can expect to win around 10-15% of the seats outside London. A reasonable expectation for us is to win 300-400 councillors, or a gain of 130-230 councillors outside London.

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u/denyer-no1-fan — 19 days ago