The BNP stand a full slate in Barking & Dagenham in 2006

[timrollpickering]

Recently I saw the leader of B&D council repeat the often made claim that if the BNP had stood a full slate they would have won control of the council in 2006. I wondered just how much truth there is in this given just how much attention the BNP challenge received at the time and over the next four years.

The BNP stood 13 candidates in 7 of the 17 wards and 12 were elected. Does anyone have a good projection model for how they might have done with candidates in the other ten?

The results can be found at:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Barking_and_Dagenham_London_Borough_Council_election

[Pete Whitehead]

Jun 15, 2020 14:48:04 GMT timrollpickering said:

Recently I saw the leader of B&D council repeat the often made claim that if the BNP had stood a full slate they would have won control of the council in 2006. I wondered just how much truth there is in this given just how much attention the BNP challenge received at the time and over the next four years.

The BNP stood 13 candidates in 7 of the 17 wards and 12 were elected. Does anyone have a good projection model for how they might have done with candidates in the other ten?

The results can be found at:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Barking_and_Dagenham_London_Borough_Council_election

It isn't just a question of whether they had candidates in the other 10 wards but had they put up full slates in those wards where they did win seats. It looks very like they could have expected to win the third seats in Alibon, Goresbrook, Mayesbrook etc. Many of the wards they left uncontested would be pretty hopeless such as Abbey, Longbridge, probably Gascoigne, but there were some others where they could have done well - Heath, River, Thames etc. The result in Village though shows they wouldn't have had it all their own way with more candidates. It's not impossible that a full slate there could have resulted in Labour winning all three seats

[greatkingrat]

BNP results from the 2008 Assembly list vote were

Mayesbrook 38.5% (2)
Alibon 38.2% (2)
Goresbrook 34.4% (2)
Parsloes 34.0% (2)
Valence 31.7% (2)
Village 31.1% (1)
Heath 30.6%
River 29.6%
Eastbury 29.3% (1)
Eastbrook 27.1%
Becontree 26.4%
Thames 26.0%
Whalebone 21.1%
Chadwell Heath 18.3%
Longbridge 16.3%
Gascoigne 15.0%
Abbey 7.7%

(numbers in brackets are where the BNP won councillors)

So a clean sweep of everything down to Eastbury would be needed for an outright majority.

[johnloony]

In order to be able to get close to answering that question, I think it would be necessary to have detailed information about who the BNP voters voted for, as well as the BNP candidates. A BNP plumper might have voted for 3 BNP candidates, but a BNP-Lab-Lab voter might have voted for the BNP only as a token protest vote, rather than as a first preference.

[timrollpickering]

There were all manner of reports at the time including of angry voters frustrated that their preferred party wasn't standing in their ward.

One thing does stand out in the results and that's there was no obvious substitute party or independent getting lots of spare votes. I suspect the BNP voters mainly plumped.

[rockefeller]

What if the BNP ran a full slate and gained control of the council?

[timrollpickering]

Already discussed on another thread here:

vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/14619/stand-full-slate-barking-dagenham

[clyde1998]

What was the context of this election? Was it simply an anti-Labour vote, something local, etc?

[bjornhattan]

Oct 16, 2022 15:02:21 GMT clyde1998 said:

What was the context of this election? Was it simply an anti-Labour vote, something local, etc?

I don't know whether there were more specific factors, but Barking and Dagenham saw particularly rapid demographic change in the 2000s (and this seems to have continued, though we won't know for sure until the census finally release their figures in the coming months). Virtually nowhere else in the country saw such a huge shift so quickly and the BNP seem to have focused on this in their campaign. By and large the wards with the strongest BNP votes were those that remained predominantly white - though with a few exceptions such as Eastbrook (where they inexplicably didn't stand).

[Sibboleth]

Something important, but often missed, is that car production at Ford Dagenham ended in 2002. That sort of backlash politics is often associated with multiple major changes occurring at once: Wallace Lawler's success in central Birmingham in the 60s, exploiting both discontent with the exact manner in which slum clearance and redevelopment was happening as well as a dislike of non-white immigration, would be a good historical example.

[mattbewilson]

What would a BNP run council be like

[peterl]

Oct 16, 2022 16:38:19 GMT mattbewilson said:

What would a BNP run council be like

I seem to remember an episode along these lines on some drama show a few years back, Spooks it might have been. Their main concern seemed to be selecting the tenants of council houses on the basis of their race.

[AdminSTB]

Oct 16, 2022 14:11:28 GMT timrollpickering said:

Already discussed on another thread here:

vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/14619/stand-full-slate-barking-dagenham

The old and new threads have been merged.

[tonyhill]

There would have been a rapid exodus of senior council officers to more congenial areas. Far left and far right parties tend to be fissiparous so there would have been splits, in-fighting, new grouplets formed, resignations from the council (especially as some of those who found themselves on the council would not have expected to have been elected). After a couple of years of chaos and appalling delivery of services Labour would have won back enough seats to take over again - they did get their act together fairly rapidly after 2006 and the BNP challenge had faded away by 2010.

[pl]

Oct 17, 2022 5:47:47 GMT tonyhill said:

There would have been a rapid exodus of senior council officers to more congenial areas. Far left and far right parties tend to be fissiparous so there would have been splits, in-fighting, new grouplets formed, resignations from the council (especially as some of those who found themselves on the council would not have expected to have been elected). After a couple of years of chaos and appalling delivery of services Labour would have won back enough seats to take over again - they did get their act together fairly rapidly after 2006 and the BNP challenge had faded away by 2010.

BNP councillors around the country have also been disproportionately poor attenders of council meetings. If they'd got more cllrs elected in B&D (probably people whose arms they'd had to twist in the first place), they'd probably have needed a decent majority just to have a majority in the chamber! Add in Tony's comments and you have quite the interesting mix.

[mattbewilson]

I don't think it's all down to politics. I remember someone commenting the when UKIP took over Thanet there were a number of parallels in their mismanagement to the Alliance running councils in the 80s. We also find that new councillors coming in find the commitment required is more than what they expected. Even in our party where there's established councillors and mentoring.

[The Bishop]

And even further back, some SNP and Plaid administrations "unexpectedly" elected when Labour melted down in 1968.

[iainbhx]

The officers would run the council.