The next Parliamentary by-election will be held in West Lancashire, following the resignation of Labour’s Rosie Cooper in order to take up a new position as Chair of Mersey NHS Trust. Will this throw up some shocks? It’s unlikely, and here’s why.
West Lancashire is one of those constituencies that’s basically just filling in the gaps between other constituencies. It contains two towns, Skelmersdale (a post industrial town fairly typical of the North West), and Ormskirk, the location of Edge Hill University. There’s a handful of smaller towns and villages around it, including the wonderfully named Ring O’Bells.
The seat has been Labour since 1992, and fairly comfortably Labour (although in 2015 this was in no small part due to the surge towards UKIP, who came third). What’s notable about the result in 2019, though, is that there was no increase in the Conservative vote here – it actually decreased slightly. This could be attributed to the Brexit Party, although they only came a weak fourth, and some of this will be the traditional Labour voters (the Labour vote decreased by 6%). Even in a bad year for Labour, the Conservatives failed to make inroads here (and they hold two neighbouring seats, where they made gains with the post-industrial traditional voters). Some of this can be attributed to the large student population of Edge Hill, as we know that the young are Labour’s strongest demographic. The Conservatives are currently nearly eleven points weaker in the polls than they were in 2019, so I can only see the Conservative vote going one way here, especially in a Northern seat. While I still expect to see a Liz Truss bounce in the polls over the next couple of months, it won’t be anywhere near sufficient to cover the deficit.
The Lib Dems and Greens have never done well here and can probably take this one off. We might see Reform or one of the multitude of other right wing parties throw some leaftlets at it (and the Christian Peoples Alliance, who somehow seem to contest every single by-election going), but not enough to make a dent. One of the small new left parties might also fancy their chances (Merseyside does tend to be TUSC territory), however none will make it to four figures.
All in all, this is going to be an unremarkable Labour hold. People will probably try and read too much into the swing, which is always a little muted in uncompetitive seats anyway, and the usual suspects will again point to low voter turnout (as is the case with EVERY BY-ELECTION). But to be honest, unless something really crazy happens, this one will only interest the purest of election nerds.
Yelling About Elections 