You also have to give George Galloway some credit - although he's failed in his main objective of bringing down Starmer, his 8000 votes were vastly in excess of the derisory support I expected him to get. Clearly he's still taken seriously in some quarters. Perhaps the lesson is that he should stick to posing as a socialist, rather than the de facto Tory he's become in Scotland.
Friday, July 2, 2021
Surprise Batley & Spen result boosts independence movement by keeping hopeless Starmer in harness
I've compared by-elections to the 1983 Darlington contest several times in the past, but the surprise Labour hold in Batley & Spen is perhaps the closest comparison of all. Just as in 1983, it was expected that a Labour defeat might help to finish off a weak and unelectable Labour leader, but just as in 1983, a Labour win against the odds has instead shored up that weak and unelectable leader. Ultimately that's bad for Labour and good for Labour's opponents, including the SNP and the whole independence movement. Even those who have a favourable view of Anas Sarwar must accept that Sarwar is not the leader of the Labour party, Keir Starmer is. The public have made up their minds about Starmer, and yet Labour now seem to be stuck with him.
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So I got the response from my FOI request this morning, asking what polling / focus groups /research the Scottish Government had undertaken regarding independence and attitudes to the union. This was the response:
ReplyDelete"While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is because the Scottish Government has not commissioned any opinion polling or focus groups on, or research into public attitudes to, the Union or Scottish Independence from January 2018 to May 2021."
Now am sure some might try arguing that this is a good thing and the the Government should not be using tax payers money on polling, but the simple fact is that Governments regularly use polls and focus groups to help shape their legislation; even a brief look through other FOI requests shows that they commission polls and focus groups on a large number of subjects.
For me adds the the feeling the a second referendum is neither high on the SNPs priorities or likely to come any time soon.
I suppose the question would be whether the SNP have been conducting the relevant polling on a party basis.
DeleteLooking at Batley&Spen's electoral history, there seems to be a protest vote of around 10-20%, representing up to 9,000 votes. In 2010, the Lib Dems got it - then imploded and UKIP got it. In 2019, an UKIP splinter party(the fantastically named Heavy Woollen District Independents) got most of it.
ReplyDeleteGalloway managed to capture that protest vote is the simple take.
Meanwhile the SNP leadership continues to ignore all those people who voted SNP in order to win back Scotland's independence.
ReplyDeleteGalloway took an overtly pro-Palestinian stance in an area with a very high Muslim population. The Tories and Labour are both rabidly pro-Israel and Labour is increasingly seen as the party of the south and of the cities. Whatever else the loathesome Galloway is, he is no fool and knows politics well, especially its dark arts, which, of course he learned as a Labour apparatchik.
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