[thread] Every time @LauraPidcock posts anything, no matter what the subject, you can guarantee that someone will pipe up with this gem: “weren’t you the MP that lost one of Labour’s safest seats?”, usually followed by some abuse to the effect that she should STFU. (1/16)
I’m not going to address the abuse today, not because I think it’s ok, but (a) Laura dealt with it very well the other day in a post and (b) even people who don’t agree with the abuse might be fooled into believing the underlying premise. So, let’s examine it. (2/16)
Firstly, how safe was the North West Durham seat? Well, in 2017, Laura won the seat with 25,308 votes (52.8%). Her majority then & going into the 2019 General Election was 8,792. By my calculations, that made it the 168th safest Labour seat in the country. (3/16)
Just to clarify. 167 Labour MPs at the 2019 General Election went into it with higher majorities & safer seats than @LauraPidcock. The biggest Labour majority at the 2017 GE was in Knowsley, with a whopping 42,214 majority - 33,422 more than Laura. Now that is safe. (4/16)
But also, 25 Labour MPs had majorities of over 30,000 & 54 had majorities of over 20,000. If we’re going to look at the actual figures & talk about the safest Labour seats in the country at #GE2019, these are the seats we should be talking about, not one 168th on the list. (5/16)
I think what people are getting confused with is that in the past, North West Durham was indeed a lot safer than it has been in recent years. Before 2019, it was a Labour held seat since 1950 - a long run. There was always a decent Tory vote, however. (6/16)
In 1997, with Hilary Armstrong as the candidate, Labour achieved its highest ever majority in NWD at 24,754. However, from that point until 2015, there is a steady swing away from Labour, whittling it away to 7,612 (2010) & 10,056 (2015) under Pat Glass. (7/16)
In 2017, Laura added over 5,000 more votes to that total, although her majority reduced slightly due to a Tory vote that gained over 6,000 more than in 2015. Even before Brexit, the signs were there of a Tory revival. This has local, demographic and national reasons. (8/16)
However, in 2019 one factor was decisive and tipped that Tory vote over the edge - Brexit. The best estimates say that North West Durham voted by 55% to Leave the EU, very similar to other constituencies in the former County Durham coalfield & the wider North East. (9/16)
Was @LauraPidcock uniquely responsible for losing her seat, in this context, as many people point out? Let’s see. If so, we’d certainly expect a sharper swing from Labour to Tory than in other similar constituencies in Durham and the North East in #GE2019, wouldn’t we? (10/16)
Ok, in North West Durham in 2019 the swing was 10.4% from Labour to Tory. In Blyth Valley, where Labour also lost a long held seat, it was exactly the same - 10.4%. In a key battleground - Bishop Auckland - where Helen Goodman lost, it was a little bit smaller - at 9.5%. (11/16)
In Sedgefield, where Blair loyalist & ardent Remainer Phil Wilson stood, the swing from Labour to Tory was 12.8%, a good 2.5% more than the swing against Laura. You wouldn’t think so if you took Twitter as the barometer, would you? (12/16)
What about the seats where Labour kept their MPs? In Easington, Grahame Morris lost over 7,500 votes in a 10.9% swing to the Tories. In Wansbeck, Ian Lavery hung on with a much reduced majority on a 11.3% swing to the Tories. For Kevan Jones in North Durham , it was 9.3% (13/16)
In all these majority Leave seats, the swing was roughly the same. With some local variation, it’s absolutely obvious to anyone looking at these results what the common & decisive factor was - which was the EU & Brexit, perfectly capitalised on, of course, by the Tories. (14/16)
This is not to say that politicians can’t buck the trend. I was still confident that we’d done enough to win in North West Durham, and we came close. Just 550 people needed to change their minds & vote for Labour - or - just 1,115 non-voters turning up & voting for Laura. (15/16)
But ultimately, all the political analysis points to one thing, awkward not just for those who want to make @LauraPidcock especially culpable, but those - incl those now in charge of @UKLabour - who pushed for a Second Referendum against very clear advice to the contrary. (16/16)
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Starmer’s statement, talking about “appalling scenes” and a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, apart from being the height of hypocrisy, is depressingly emblematic of a wider body of opinion amongst our political class. 1/7
It is an attitude that refuses to acknowledge the UK’s direct complicity in the creation of these “appalling scenes” - a narrative which talks about the medical needs of children as if it was a natural disaster. But it’s also in denial of history. 2/7
Let’s just pause & reflect on the fact that the UK is still supplying components for the bombs that have devastated whole cities in Gaza, and continue to do so today. 3/7
Of course @Keir_Starmer & all the people around him understand that the way people experience racism is different. They may play dumb, but this isn’t about that. (1/5)
It’s actually about the maintenance of a hierarchy of racism which has been so central to the Starmer project. Antisemitism is not just at the top of the tree, but the only one that is allowed to be discussed with any seriousness by the political and media class. (2/5)
They cannot allow a discussion (led by @HackneyAbbott or anyone else) to be had about the detailed operation of other racisms, and especially the unique impact that anti-black racism & Islamophobia has had … (3/5)
One of the very predictable outcomes of Labour’s proscription of Palestine Action & the abuse of anti-terrorist legislation was that the police would fail to grasp the difference between, say, holding a Palestine flag, or signs saying “Israel is committing genocide” … 1/8
… and supporting a proscribed organisation. This is exactly what’s happened in Kent, with one officer telling Laura Murton:
“Mentioning freedom of Gaza, Israel, genocide, all come under proscribed groups, which are terror groups that have been dictated by the government.” 2/8
This bright spark said that the phrase “Free Gaza” was “supportive of Palestine Action” & it was an offence “to express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, namely Palestine Action is an offence under section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act”. 3/8
It’s quite likely that Parliament has just voted for something illegal, something that will be challenged & overturned in court. Even if it’s not, the proscription of Palestine Action is one of the most flagrant abuses of anti-terrorism law possible & morally repugnant. (1/6)
Only 26 MPs voted against the proscription, while many considered to be on the ‘left’ voted for the proscription (including Momentum-supported pair Navendu Mishra & Chris Webb). Many others abstained. (2/6)
9 Labour MPs voted against the proscription. They were Diane Abbott, Tahir Ali, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain, Kim Johnson, Clive Lewis, Grahame Morris & Nadia Whittome.
3 suspended Labour MPs voted against: Aspana Begum, John McDonnell & Zarah Sultana. (3/6)
🧵 The amount of pressure / leverage that can be applied to the Parliamentary Labour Party is limited. In the past I’ve absolutely advocated for this strategy & I can understand why people think it might work again, but we have to understand the recent history of the party. 1/14
We aren’t dealing with Ed Miliband’s Labour here. It has changed beyond recognition, exactly because the people who’ve now got a vice-like grip over it, were determined that they would never lose control again after getting the fright of their lives between 2015 & 2017. 2/14
Take it from those of us who were close to the ground during the Corbyn years - these are some of the most poisonous, morality-free people in politics. Remember, to them, the Labour Party was their plaything. 3/14
🧵 The latest local elections are a perfect example of why it’s naive to say that local politics has nothing to do with national issues. (1/18)
Of course, the duties you’ll be carrying out will be at a local level, and you’ll be responsible for local services & the interests of your community but whether people like it or not, if you are representing a national political party, that is something you cannot avoid. (2/18)
1. Firstly, the state of local services, the cuts they’ve faced from central government & the policy remedies are often set at national level. (3/18)