I'm not sure I understand? You said the turn out figure suggests a lot of Labour supporters sat on their hands. But the turn out yesterday was almost exactly the same as it was for the general election so I don't think you can't really read anything into it.
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Simple, those that voted Labour in the General Election didn't vote yesterday perhaps. The others that didn't vote in the General Election turned out this time.
That's obviously possible but you'd need a sizeable chunk of people who voted Labour last time to decide not to vote at all this time at the same time as an almost equal chunk of people of who didn't vote last time decide to vote Green, which feels unlikely.
Most national polls indicate Labour are in a similar position to the Conservatives - support for both parties has fallen off a cliff. So to me it seems much more likely that people decided to vote for a different party instead. But there's nothing in the turn out figure itself to suggest which of those things happened.
As I said, a vote for 'best of the rest', which in the current climate, should have been Reform, but that didn't happen, you have to ask why?
To me, it looks like voters were disillusioned with the two major parties, and looked around for a non-Reform/Farage protest vote, so they chose The Greens. It made me consider my voting intentions here in Hampshire North West. I've always voted against the Tories on principle, but the electorate would never contemplate a Labour MP, so I've voted Liberal Democrat, just to unsettle the Tories. A bit. But now, a vote for The Green Party no longer seems to be a wasted vote (although it probably will be). The local elections in May could well show how much the average person wants change, at the same time as being unwilling to let Farage have a go.
I would say it's fairly obvious. Gorton and Denton is a very left wing constituency with a significant Muslim population. Many voters probably don't think Labour is left wing enough economically while the Green party proposes very left wing economic policies and has actively courted the Muslim vote with its policies on Gaza, election leaflets and videos in Urdu etc
It would have been interesting if all of those MP's changing allegiance, were to stand for re-election, how many would be elected under their new party?
Green party were junior partners in coalition on a few occasions in Ireland. I actually thought they did a lot of good and reigned in the main party on a number of occasions. In the last government they were the only one who backed up their promises. Now I'm not sure if the party would be all that similar in Britain but they weren't a disaster by any means in Ireland. Felt their policies were far too Dublin centric though and not as good rurally
Reform getting in was always reliant on low turnout. When a seat in GE in the last general elections had Tory+reform/right as 22% then it needed to be a typical low by election turnout.
The right wing vote actually increased from 2024! by 9%!
It isn't a surprise that Reform didn't win it though as posted above! They needed a low turnout to win.
So you are saying a lot of Labour voters sat on their hands..........but the turnout was only a nats tooth lower than the GE so a lot of new voters came out to vote green? Hmmm. I suspect a high % didn't sit on their hands and switched to green / reform with an added tinkling of new voters on the top.
The turnout would suggest that not that many usual voters sat it out.
There were hints on BBC News of Family Voting i.e. two people in the Voting booth, it is apparently illegal, the Poling Officer should have been watching out for that?
Because it is a heavily left wing constituency and the ceiling for any right wing win was pretty low needing a very low turnout. The right wing vote actually increased from 22% to 31%
Combined right wing:left wing numbers/% (2019 is pre boundary so a notional result)
Right:Left Numbers / right %
2019 10864:34964 / 24%
2024 8030:36560 / 22%
2025 11438:36903 / 31%
If the turnout had been low and reform got their numbers out then yes they would have likely won but it is spin to say it "should have been reform." It isn't just a case of reform not winning. The right wing numbers would not have won this seat even applied to the previous 2 elections!
The whole right wing combined numbers would have finished 2nd in all 3 of these elections!
The independent observers group that do random observations (so only 45% of the polling stations in this election) issued an "extraordinary statemen" when the polls closed that they had recorded more observations of "family voting" (possible coercion) in this election by a distance than any other recorded numbers hence the issuing of their extraordinary statement.
The acting officer's spokesperson very swiftly issued a snarky dismissive statement that the observers should have reported it to the polling station staff and they didn't. Then stated that they shouldn't have waited until after the polls closed to state this.
Because of the dismissive brush off statement put out by the acting officer's spokesman John Ault, director of Democracy Volunteers snapped back with:
"the group had raised the matter at polling stations.
It is a normal international standard not to issue a comment until after a voting has finished, another accepted aspect of election observation is that you are encouraged to ask questions of staff…
We posed questions about family voting in several polling stations and how staff dealt with it when it arose.”
So that will roll on. The speed of the acting officer's reply after the observers release their statement was such that it is unlikely they checked anything and just rushed off a statement thinking no one would say anything. It was about 15-30 minutes after the first statement and the observers response to that response was about half an hour later!
However.............going off the numbers voting it is nigh on impossible that it actually affected the result! No way it skewed 4000 votes so would only really matter to this election if it was closer. Something though to investigate for the future! Reports were that people were being accompanied into booths is illegal! Taking photos of your vote (to prove to someone how you voted?) is illegal!
Why the acting officer's office responded so quickly and dismissively to this statement is something to question! It didn't need a response so quickly and I daresay could've been the usual we will take this on board and investigate (kcik can down road = ignore) without such a vociferous dismissal basically calling the statement lies.
They called out a statement from official observers that are backed by the electoral commission! These weren't partisan comments. lol
No idea why Farage is pushing on this. Its something to address for the future but no point pushing for a revote when you;re 4000 behind in the original .lol. If anything it might increase. Take the loss on the chin Nigel
Try harder next time.
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It should serve as a kick in the pants for Labour, but I can't see them changing much in the near future. Even if Starmer stood down I can't see anybody that is currently better equipped to run the Party in a way that would encourage voters to support them. With such a large majority they should be fast tracking Bills through, but too many of their own don't seem to be supporting their own Cabinet What a dogs breakfast...
Its more than a kick in the teeth. I thought Labour would cling on just with the left vote being split by the Greens and reform ending up beaten by a smaller amount! No-one (including the Greens until after the vote had closed) was really expecting the Greens to decimate the Labour vote by so much!
Both Greens and Reform thought it was close until an hour or 2 into the counting! Labour were already talking about defeat within minutes of the poll closing! Even Kier Starmer turned up in the constituency the other day when they thought it would be close. If they expected such a defeat he would have stayed away!
Why would you expect them to act?
Remember, the British state turned a blind eye to (and continues to drag its feet on investigating) the rape of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of children because the people who were in a position to do something about it were scared of being called racist. This is small potatoes in comparison.
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Well it could be the Voters were ignorant of the rules rather than deliberately breaking the law, they could have been put right.