George Galloway in Batley & Spen

[michaelarden]

My entirely unreliable source claims internal Labour polling puts Galloway on 15%.

[Yorkie]

About 1500 - 2500. He's put up a lot of posters and his supporters are active in the WhatsApp groups of Batley. But if you go to the constituency it doesn't really feel like he's anywhere near a win. And Spenborough is not the same as Batley...

EDIT: What he is great at, of course, is getting London-based political correspondents to obsess about him. You fear it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[andrew111]

Jun 21, 2021 13:03:38 GMT Crimson King said:

Jun 21, 2021 12:50:31 GMT andrew111 said:

I would be interested to know your view on how Galloway captured the Tory vote so completely in Bradford West..

I think it is a bit more complicated than that.
Looking at the results over recent GEs the Conservatives got 30 odd percent between '97 and 2010 with muslim candidates against the sikh Marsha Singh
in the by-election the conservative Candidate was a white, non muslim and the Conservative vote was 8%
the last 2 elections, with a white, then muslim candidate they got 15%ish
I would contend that, as is often the case, shifts in voting patterns in Bradford West had little to do with traditional ideological divides

I don't know Bradford West at all well, but aren't there leafy bits with white Tory voters in them? They never got <30% before the Marsha Singh era, so presumably you are saying there was a big demographic shift from 35% to 15% Tory vote over that period that was hidden by them running a non-Sikh candidate?
It is certainly true that the vote for Naz Shah is now pretty monolithic!

[andrewp]

Jun 21, 2021 13:09:34 GMT michaelarden said:

My entirely unreliable source claims internal Labour polling puts Galloway on 15%.

The electorate is 80000, so if the turnout were 60% , that would be about c.7000 votes.

[Crimson King]

Jun 21, 2021 13:24:12 GMT andrew111 said:

Jun 21, 2021 13:03:38 GMT Crimson King said:

I think it is a bit more complicated than that.
Looking at the results over recent GEs the Conservatives got 30 odd percent between '97 and 2010 with muslim candidates against the sikh Marsha Singh
in the by-election the conservative Candidate was a white, non muslim and the Conservative vote was 8%
the last 2 elections, with a white, then muslim candidate they got 15%ish
I would contend that, as is often the case, shifts in voting patterns in Bradford West had little to do with traditional ideological divides

I don't know Bradford West at all well, but aren't there leafy bits with white Tory voters in them? They never got <30% before the Marsha Singh era, so presumably you are saying there was a big demographic shift from 35% to 15% Tory vote over that period that was hidden by them running a non-Sikh candidate?
It is certainly true that the vote for Naz Shah is now pretty monolithic!

Very few - Thornton and Allerton is fairly white, and has elected conservatives in the past but of late has been solidly labour and Clayton and Fairweather Green (also elects Labour in Locals now)

So probably yes - demographic shift to asian Muslims, and a bunch of professional/arty/public sector people voting Labour in Thornton and Clayton
But some of the 'Tory Vote' was never really Tory, at least not in recent years but a family vote for one section of the muslim community

[thirdchill]

Am going to go for about 3000, with most of that coming from Batley itself, and slim pickings elsewhere.

And the overall majority for the winner being smaller than Galloway's total vote.

[lefty]

My original instinct was 1000-1999 but after reading everyone else's views I am worried I low balled it...

I am wondering about white and other non Muslim minority voters, just general anti Starmer anti Tory voters looking for somewhere (anywhere) to place a vote, Galloway has gone heavy on being the anti Starmer candidate, maybe there are some of those about he can pick up as well as Muslim votes he is specifically cultivating.

Also is he going to pick up many people on other issues, like someone said maybe some right wingers who have voted Tory previously.

[andrew111]

Jun 21, 2021 15:25:11 GMT lefty said:

My original instinct was 1000-1999 but after reading everyone else's views I am worried I low balled it...

I am wondering about white and other non Muslim minority voters, just general anti Starmer anti Tory voters looking for somewhere (anywhere) to place a vote, Galloway has gone heavy on being the anti Starmer candidate, maybe there are some of those about he can pick up as well as Muslim votes he is specifically cultivating.

Also is he going to pick up many people on other issues, like someone said maybe some right wingers who have voted Tory previously.

I think the 15.4% (8k votes) who went for Halloran and BXP who might be tempted by Galloway. Natural protest voters who don't like either Tory or Labour much. I doubt if many were Asian in 2019.

[jamie]

Jun 21, 2021 12:10:00 GMT The Bishop said:

If they are almost all Muslim voters, maybe.

An intriguing possibility, however, has to be that he takes a significant chunk of the "right populist" 2019 GE vote that the Tories are hoping for this time round.

Given he’s running pretty much an entirely Asian focused campaign, I’d expect him to get essentially no white support (which caveats aside, the constituency poll supported). 

[andrew111]

Jun 21, 2021 15:45:16 GMT jamie said:

Jun 21, 2021 12:10:00 GMT The Bishop said:

If they are almost all Muslim voters, maybe.

An intriguing possibility, however, has to be that he takes a significant chunk of the "right populist" 2019 GE vote that the Tories are hoping for this time round.

Given he’s running pretty much an entirely Asian focused campaign, I’d expect him to get essentially no white support (which caveats aside, the constituency poll supported). 

Don't think he is running an entirely Asian focuused campaign..

[iainbhx]

Jun 21, 2021 13:27:17 GMT andrewp said:

Jun 21, 2021 13:09:34 GMT michaelarden said:

My entirely unreliable source claims internal Labour polling puts Galloway on 15%.

The electorate is 80000, so if the turnout were 60% , that would be about c.7000 votes.

Given the turnout in the GE was 66%, the usual rule of thumb would point to a turnout of about 45%.

[Ron Swanson]

2000-3000.

Nowhere near enough to win but enough to influence the outcome, probably.

Batley isn’t the west side of Bradford... and Tories are in with a shot at winning, so their vote won’t melt away to him like it did a decade ago.

[John Chanin]

Jun 21, 2021 9:18:05 GMT John Chanin said:

I expect Galloway to save his deposit, but not by that much. 5% of a 40% turnout (typical for by-elections) is only some 1300 votes. I can’t see him getting more than 2000 unless there is an unexpectedly large turnout.

80,000 electorate at 45% gives 36,000 votes.  5% of this is 1800.  My top of the head figure above is therefore too small.  I’d place Galloway at 2000-2500 votes.

[greenhert]

I will be amazed if he manages 1000 votes in this by election. The polling on him is just hype looking at recent election results concerning George Galloway.

[right]

How about looking it from Galloway's viewpoint and taking his claims seriously? 

If he had 10,000 banked votes a week ago, then that's a rate of around 2,000 a week over the five weeks since he got interested.  Continued canvassing would get 4,000 more votes by election day.  Let's halve that because his team are going to have to go outside Muslim names on the register.

So that's 12,000 banked votes by election day.

A reasonably organised and manned campaign can get 70% out in most elections, so if he can get 70% of those votes out then that's 8,400 votes. 

We've heard about a 45% turnout - so that would be 36,000 voters.  So Galloway would have 23% of the electorate - not enough to win even in a three way contest.  It would probably be a lower share because a lot of his votes would be infrequent voters so the turnout would be higher than the 45%.

If he had 15,000 banked votes by election day due to extra help and more resonance on the doorstep then he would be around 10,500 votes - or just shy of 30% - probably second place but still not enough to win a three way marginal.

[The Bishop]

How seriously should we take GG's claims though?

Even leaving aside his own character for a moment, doesn't it rather remind you of those good old fashioned Liberal/LibDem "canvass returns"?

[ricmk]

I thought the Tory leaflet claiming that it's them or GG works well. Brings anti-GG voters over to them, and plants seeds of doubt in Labour voters minds, about whether they should switch to GG. Absolutely not in the Tory interest to put that out, if they think George Galloway is seriously the contender - and let's not get ahead of ourselves here. 6% in the one poll from the constituency.

[right]

Jun 24, 2021 11:14:07 GMT The Bishop said:

How seriously should we take GG's claims though?

Even leaving aside his own character for a moment, doesn't it rather remind you of those good old fashioned Liberal/LibDem "canvass returns"?

Well quite, although banked votes and pledges really don't mean much to someone who has never canvassed - so the cut through is going to be less.  So for that reason he may be talking close to the truth although if the canvassers are inexperienced they are more likely to be taking non committal responses for a pledge of support - our younger selves have all been there.

But the point is that the banked votes sounds impressive - but it's going to need a step change for him to be challenging for the seat.

[andrew111]

Jun 24, 2021 11:14:07 GMT The Bishop said:

How seriously should we take GG's claims though?

Even leaving aside his own character for a moment, doesn't it rather remind you of those good old fashioned Liberal/LibDem "canvass returns"?

You do realise the "polls" in C&A were almost certainly based on "Lib Dem canvas returns"? Which were probably very accurate at the time but massively underestimated the result on the day

[Deleted]

I went with 30,000-80,000, for a laugh because really who the heck knows? Too many known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
It could be anything from zero upwards.