Live Commentary
4:56pm Tuesday While the Socialists may be able to cobble together a government in the lower house, the PP won 120 of the 208 elected senators, to 72 for the Socialists. FPTP is used for the Senate, and all mainland provinces get four senators regardless of population. Cases of disagreement between the chambers can be resolved if an absolute majority of the lower house is in favour, but that requires 176 votes.
7:51am Monday With 98% counted in Sunday’s Spanish election, the conservative People’s Party has 32.9%, the governing centre-left Socialists 31.8%, the far-right Vox 12.4% and the left-wing Sumar 12.3%. The lead for PP and Vox over the Socialists and Sumar is just 1.2%, far less than expected in pre-election polls.
Seat numbers in the lower house are 136 PP, 122 Socialists, 33 Vox and 31 Sumar. So PP and Vox add to 169 of the 350 seats, not enough for the 176 required for a majority. The Socialists and Sumar add to 153 seats. Regionalists, who are mostly left-wing, will hold the balance of power. There could be a new election needed in Spain.
2:18pm So the overall result is the Tories lose two of the three by-elections by big margins, but hold Uxbridge narrowly. The Tories are about 20 points behind Labour in UK national polls, so this should be expected. The next UK general election is not due until late 2024. I will use this post to comment on the Spanish results on Monday morning.
2:15pm Labour GAINS Selby from the Tories with a massive swing. It’s the biggest vote majority Labour has overturned at a by-election. The Tories won it by over 20,000 votes in 2019.
12:33pm I will be going out for lunch soon.
11:57am So now we’re just waiting for the Selby declaration.
11:55am Lib Dems GAIN Somerton from Tories with HUGE swing and a big new majority.
11:44am Tories HOLD Uxbridge.
11:34am Tories may have won Uxbridge by about 400 votes.
11:15am Friday A recount will be held in Uxbridge. I don’t have information yet as to which side called for it. Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan may be unpopular.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
Original post on Thursday July 20
Polls close at 7am Friday AEST for the three UK by-elections in Uxbridge, Selby & Ainsty and Somerton & Frome – all three by-elections are for Conservative-held seats. It’s likely to take at least a few hours to get results of these by-elections. I will be at gym Friday morning, but should get home by 11am, in time for the results.
Uxbridge was former PM Boris Johnson’s seat, and he won it at the December 2019 election by a 52.6-37.6 margin over Labour with 6.3% for the Liberal Democrats. At that election, the Conservatives won Somerton by 55.8-26.2 over the Lib Dems with 12.9% Labour and 5.1% Greens. They won Selby by 60.3-24.6 over Labour with 8.6% Lib Dems.
These large seat wins were from overall vote shares at the 2019 election of 43.6% Conservative, 32.1% Labour and 11.6% Lib Dems. In national polls, Labour currently has about a 20-point lead over the Conservatives, in contrast to the 11.5-point Conservative win in 2019. Seat polls give Labour an eight-point lead in Uxbridge and a 12-point lead in Selby. The Lib Dems had huge swings in their favour at by-elections earlier this term.
In the lead-up to these by-elections, there has been an internal Labour fight over leader Keir Starmer’s announcement that he would keep the Conservatives’ “two-child benefit limit”. This limits welfare payments to the first two children in a family. It may be a mistake for Starmer to have this fight just before the by-elections.
Right likely to win in Spain
Polls for Sunday’s Spanish election close at 4am Monday AEST. The Congress of Deputies has 350 members elected by proportional representation by region, with a 3% threshold per region. Seats per region are allocated on a population basis. In the Senate, 208 of the 266 seats are elected by First Past the Post (FPTP), with four seats for most regions.
Polling indicates the conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox are leading the centre-left Socialists and left-wing Sumar by single digit margins. Some of the 350 seats in the Congress will go to regionalists, so it could be difficult for the right-wing parties to win the 176 combined seats required for an outright majority. The current heatwave in Spain and in southern Europe has not affected the polling.
Thai and Alberta, Canada elections
At the May 14 Thai election, the left-wing Move Forward won 151 of the 500 lower house seats. They formed a coalition with Pheu Thai (141 seats) and other parties to get 313 votes. But the PM is elected by a combined vote of both parliamentary chambers, and the 250 senators are military appointees. An absolute majority (375 votes) was required. In the July 13 first round, Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat won 324 votes with 182 opposed and 243 abstentions or absentees. As Pita was short of 375, he did not become PM. In a second vote Wednesday, 395 were opposed to Pita and 312 in favour.
At the May 29 election for the Canadian province of Alberta, the governing United Conservative Party (UCP) won 49 of Alberta’s 87 seats, to 38 for the left-wing New Democrats (NDP). In 2015, the NDP won a shock victory in Canada’s most right-wing province owing to a split in the conservative vote and the use of FPTP. At this election, vote shares were 52.6-44.1 to the UCP. The NDP swept all seats in Edmonton and won many in Calgary. Alberta is a case where the left trend in cities is making it easier for the left to win.