There are some UK constituencies that are so culturally and socially wedded to one particular party that the result is what is called a safe seat and the results of elections very much a foregone conclusion. You have places where for historical reasons and reasons of demographics, people vote for the party that their fathers and grandfathers voted for. Voters in these areas do this even when the party voted for may have changed out of all recognition from what it was in the past and that party’s policies may not be that good for that constituency.

To shift a party from a safe seat takes an enormous effort on the part of the parties that are challenging the incumbent party. It also sometimes requires there to be some matter of pressing local interest, or a scandal concerning the incumbent party to get the majority of Britons who don’t bother to vote off of their backsides and down to the polling station. In addition to these factors there needs to be a challenger candidate who can sell themselves effectively to all different types of voter and be a strong enough challenger that they can prise those who vote for parties out of habit or out of family custom to vote differently.

This problem of almost impossible to change safe seats is a phenomenon that I have found most often in Labour areas. Because Labour was once a party that was seen as a supporter of the working classes, as opposed to the Conservatives who are still seen as ‘the bosses party’, you get constituencies that turn in Labour MP after Labour MP at election after election and they do this even when Labour’s policies are against the best interests of the working class in these areas. The joke that in some areas you could pin a red rosette on a dog turd and it would win is sadly not too far fetched.

It looks to me as if yesterday’s Newport West by-election has also seemingly been affected by the phenomena of familial custom voting, people voting out of habit and the lack of either a massive local issue or quality challengers to the incumbent party. As expected in this by-election, called following the death of popular Labour MP Paul Flynn returned a Labour winner a trade union worker named Ruth Jones. However Ms Jones, who is a Remainer representing a constituency in which a majority voted Leave in the EU Referendum, did suffer a 12.7% drop in votes when compared to what her predecessor got.

Labour winning the Newport West seat is not exactly a surprise, it’s been solid Labour for donkeys years. However for me the interest lies in the undercard at this by-election, an election that had a dismal turnout of around 37%.

The Conservatives lost votes and were placed second. I put this drop in votes partially down to the complete omnishambles that has engulfed the Tory party over Brexit. I suspect that there were some Tory voters who stayed home in disgust at their own leader.

Many of the minor parties picked up votes with UKIP keeping the third place they got at the last General Election. The Greens, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru also increased their vote share from last time. The UKIP vote rise is interesting as it could indicate that contrary to what some have said, Gerard Batten’s choice to bring Tommy Robinson on board has not hurt the party’s support that much. They managed to force Plaid and the Lib Dems into fourth and fifth places respectively. There were of course a sprinkling of independents and smaller parties who polled in the sub-4% zone. The result was an utter disaster for the For Britain Party and the Democrats and Veterans Party. Democrats and Veterans got 0.8% of the vote and For Britain came in last with 0.7%. The For Britain party vote is especially interesting as it may show a disconnect between how popular a party is on social media and how that interest is translated into votes at elections. If For Britain want to be taken more seriously by a wider audience then they need to be able to poll in greater numbers than they have in Newport West. The fact that For Britain got less votes at this by-election, 159, than the Monster Raving Loony Party has got at various previous elections in different parts of the country, will no doubt be exploited by the Left. This result should cause the For Britain party to maybe do some hard thinking about policies and presentation.

The Democrats and Veterans Party continues to languish without much electoral support although their result in this election, 185, is better than their result from Lewisham East in June 2018 where they polled 67 votes. For me the DVP is not a serious party and in my view has done things that have negatively affected its credibility with voters. Chief among those is the giving a platform to notorious ‘satanic ritual abuse’ hoaxer Belinda McKenzie and ‘paedo hunter’ self publicist Jon Wedger. If a party can’t smell the bullshit in this pair, who have far too close an association with various conspiraloons, then I doubt that it is competent to govern in any area that they are elected in.

As I said earlier in this article the main result, the winner, was due to the nature of this constituency a bit of a foregone conclusion. People there are too dyed in the wool tribalists to vote Conservative and the Conservative vote itself may have been effected by events in Westminster. Those who may have voted for other parties didn’t bother to turn out, although this low turnout could be down to bad weather on polling day. It is evident that neither the minor parties or more surprisingly the Lib Dems had candidates or policies that they could effectively sell to voters.

The main interesting result for me was the slight increase in the UKIP vote. They managed this despite having a candidate, Neil Hamilton, who may not be everyone’s cup of tea (some of still remember the ‘brown envelope’ scandal to which his name was attached ) and a much closer association with Tommy Robinson than they had previously. To increase their vote despite all this and much negative attention on them from the press and Leftist activists, is an achievement. UKIP could use this result as a foundation to build on but will need to be much more focussed on showing a competent face to the public. The party also needs to be keeping a policy balance between being a one or two issue party and policies that appeal more broadly and which can deliver for voters. Time and the results that Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party can deliver will show whether UKIP will build, stagnate or fall. I think that due to sheer personal recognition alone Mr Farage’s party will garner a significant number of votes and that may affect the votes that UKIP get.

Newport West was a Labour win as expected as was the drop in the Conservative Party vote. The surprises were UKIP doing so well and the Lib Dems being forced down to fifth place which is not a good place to be for a party that was in recent years part of a Coalition government. This by-election was a bit of a political litmus test really as it isn’t a scandal hit constituency like Peterborough where a by-election may take place in the near future, but a normal safe ‘one party state’ seat. It is a reasonable representation of many similar constituencies in Britain and it will be interesting to see if a similar pattern of voting is reflected in these constituencies in the future.