Britain’s opposition Labour Party won a parliamentary seat in northern England on Thursday with an increased share of the vote, a relief to the party’s new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in his first electoral test.
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UKIP’s candidate in Oldham West, John Bickley, almost overturned an 11,000 Labour majority last October, losing by just 600 votes.
UKIP’s popularity soared in the national election and pushed Labour’s usual contender, the Conservative party, into a close third place in this part of Oldham by taking 21 per cent of the vote.
Simon Danczuk, MP for neighbouring Rochdale, said that the victory was down to the hard work and local reputation ofMr McMahon, who has served as leader of Oldham council.
Standing on the steps to the hall among a crowd of Labour supporters who had waited patiently in the cold for his arrival, the party leader made a brief speech praising Mr McMahon before leaving by auto.
The other candidates are: Liberal Democrat Jane Brophy, Conservative Party James Daly, Green Party Simeon Hart and Sir Oink A-Lot of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. It since spurred a number of prophesies that Nigel Farage’s party could eventually sweep away the North from Labour, just as the SNP hoovered up Scotland. I never thought we would get the majority we got.
Labour has held the seat for nearly 50 years and is expected to hang on, albeit with a reduced majority.
‘That would make it fair again. His deputy, Paul Nuttall, called postal voting an “affront to democracy” and asked provocatively: “Is this Britain or is this Harare?” “That would make polling day actually mean something”.
Ukip targeted the apparent split in its campaign and Mr Farage said the poll “could well be within a few hundred votes”.
Mr Farage’s party tried to turn the by-election into a referendum on Mr Corbyn. They’ve never even heard of Jeremy Corbyn.
“If he has got evidence of that, he should have told the police immediately”, Mr Watson told Today. While there has been a weakening of social class as a determinant of voting intention, semi and unskilled labourers still form a key bedrock of Labour’s electoral support and the proportion of a constituency’s population from DE social grades is still a relatively good predictor of Labour’s vote share (as the graph below demonstrates). “So I’m glad that together we have delivered a result Michael would be proud of”.
“I hope our MPs will see that if you stand up for working people, they respond by supporting you at elections”, he said.
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“But I think really what you had was a candidate who was well-known locally and was addressing the issues that people were concerned about on the doorstep”.
