What No Respect Election Results Analysis?

[Fisher_Gate]

Whatever the finer details are the fact is that (as another poster pointed out) Respect only put up 48 candidates in 10475 seats. Its such a small number of candidates that it proves that Respect is a non starter.

BarryB

In the Ribble Valley council elections, for the first time since its foundation the Labour Party failed to stand a single candidate in 40 seats for the district council or in over 60 parish council seats. In 1945, the parliamentary seat of Clitheroe (which is the core of present day Ribble Valley) was won by the Labour Party. I used to be a member of that Party and we always stood candidates until New Labour took over and the party collapsed (and I moved house).

I am told on another list that the following councils who had elections last week, have no Labour councillors elected at all. It is unsurprising that Respect did not stand in any of them either. I don't know how many seats that covers, but it's a good chunk of the 10,000+ you quote above (a lot of these councils are in rural areas and have all out elections for a disproportionate number of councillors - eg Respect won 1 and came second in two Birmingham wards with a population represented greater than all 40 councillors in Ribble Valley).

Adur
Aylesbury Vale
Babergh
Boston
Broadland
Caradon
Castle Point
Chelmsford
Chichester
Chiltern
Christchurch
Congleton
Cotswold
Craven
East Cambridgeshire
East Devon
East Dorset
East Hampshire
East Hertfordshire
East Northamptonshire
Eastbourne
Eden
Elmbridge
Epsom & Ewell
Fenland
Forest Heath
Fylde
Guildford
Hambleton
Harborough
Harrogate
Hart
Horsham
Huntingdonshire
Kennet
Lewes
Maldon
Malvern Hills
Mendip
Mid Bedfordshire
Mid Devon
Mid Suffolk
Mole Valley
New Forest
North Cornwall
North Devon
North Dorset
North Kesteven
North Norfolk
Oadby & Wigston
Oswestry
Poole
Purbeck
Restormel
Ribble Valley
Richmondshire
Rochford
Rother
Runnymede
Rutland
Ryedale
Shepway
South Buckinghamshire
South Hams
South Holland
South Norfolk
South Shropshire
South Somerset
Spelthorne
Stratford-On-Avon
Teignbridge
Test Valley
Tewkesbury
Tonbridge & Malling
Torbay
Torridge
Tunbridge Wells
Uttlesford
Vale Of White Horse
Waverley
Wealden
West Berkshire
West Devon
West Dorset
West Lindsey
West Wiltshire
Windsor & Maidenhead Royal
Woking
Wokingham
Worthing
Wychavon


Respect increased the number of candidates it stood by over 50% (I am doing another analysis over the weekend). It won several seats in its own name for the first time and managed a majority of decent results.

It's a small beginning, but Respect is growing as Labour is collapsing. If I were you, I would be rather more concerned about why Labour is putting up such few candidates and not winning any seats in large swathes of the country, when it has all the advantages of being the government.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

It is likely that as the Labour Party disintergrates, we will see more disgruntled Labour party members setting up small "soft-left" outfits like People's Voice, Citizens Action Party etc. For many Labour members this provides a much more attractive option than teaming up with the far left and those radicalised by the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements.
My opinion is that the objective conditions for a party standing to the left of Labour in Wales are extremely good. RESPECT in Wales just hasn't managed to get it's act together yet. Paul Lynch, Chair of Swansea Defend Council Housing could be a strong candidate in the council elections next year.

The reason SW probably didn't mention People's Voice was because the Welsh elections attracted very little enthusiasm in Wales and no coverage outside of Wales, so it probably just passed them by. People's Voice have attracted very little interest outside of a small area of Wales. While they have proved a poll of attraction to some disgruntled Labour members in the areas near by, in Torfaen and Islwyn, I think like Forward Wales they will remain a local phenomena.

My talk of learning from People's Voice and Forward Wales about their limited success was a bit silly. The reason they were able to make a breakthrough was they were all linked with established Labour politicians who left Labour to stand against Labour and then formed a group around them. RESPECT in Wales obviously can't replicate this, unless some high profile left wing Labour figure in Wales joined RESPECT - but I can't actually think of any high profile left wing Labour figures in Wales who garner much respect.

John Marek, a Wrexham Labour member of the Assembly (not known for being on the left when he was a member of Labour) broke with Labour to stand as an independent. He then formed a polical party with Ron Davies, who has a political profile through being one time Welsh Secretary. So it is inevitable that political groupings around these kind of figures can make more progress quickly than RESPECT.

Forward Wales has proved to be a failure, partly through it's activist base a small nationalist outfit - Cymru Goch - falling out with Marek and joining Plaid. They have now been wiped out with Marek losing his seat and remained a local phenomena around Wrexham, I suspect that PV may go the same way and certainly has a less left wing programme than FW who also achieved some impressive things. The victory of the Defend Council Housing campaign in Wrexham - apart from Swansea the only place sell-off has been defeated & the affiliation of Wrexham RMT to FW. WHile Marek was a standard left-of-centre politician orientated on elections, some of it's activists seemed to have a more grassroots orientation to the social movements (hence Defend Council Housing etc.) which People's Voice seem lacking.

It is clear why both these projects have managed to make breakthroughs. Though to speak of People's Voice as a party is possibly incorrect - as with FW all their candidates stood as "Independents" and they are a loose grouping.