Some Reflections on the General Election Results
Behind all of the congratulations and euphoria, (on what was a remarkable day for Labour), locally enthusiasm for any of the candidates was limited.
In the new seat of Stratford and Bow only 54% of the electorate turned out to vote. In East Ham it was 48% and in West Ham and Beckton it was a mere 46%.
In every seat Labour took a commanding lead. Again, this disguised the underlying trends whereby there were swings against Labour in all three seats.
The results support the idea that opposition to Labour comes, not from the Tories and Liberals, (or even Reform), but from the Greens in the north and west of the borough and Newham Independents elsewhere. It is helpful to Labour that the opposition don’t seem to have realised that.
Interestingly there seems to have been very little appetite for Galloway’s Workers Party in Newham, though they did do somewhat better than TUSC. The vote for Reform in West Ham and Beckton was 2800, despite the candidate withdrawing before the election.
In East Ham, Stephen Timms retained an overall majority of 51.6% of the vote. The other Labour victors did not fare quite so well.
In West Ham and Beckton, James Asser gained 45,2% and in Stratford and Bow, Uma Kumaran took just 44.1% of the vote.
This invites the obvious questions about legitimacy when a candidate takes 44% of a turnout of 46%. A popular mandate of 20 odd percent doesn’t sound quite so inspiring. The turnout in both seats was lower than the lowest turnout in any seat in the country in 2019, (Kingston upon Hull East, if you are interested, which had a 2019 turnout of 49.3%).
Compare this with Newham in 2019 when Lyn Brown took 71% of the votes cast and Stephen Timms took 76% on a turnout of 62% in both seats, and the enthusiasm for Labour that has swept the country seems a little less evident here.
The results are shown in the graphics below, from the BBC website and the UK Parliament website.
