Post by Robert Waller on Aug 10, 2023 12:58:55 GMT
Wales was something of a disaster area for Labour in the December 2019 general election. In all they lost six parliamentary seats to the Conservatives, who (with the regain of a byelection loss to the Liberal Democrats in Brecon & Radnor) essentially doubled their tally to 14, their best since 1983. In particular, Labour was put to the sword in North Wales, where five of those losses occurred: Clwyd South, Delyn, Vale of Clwyd, Wrexham and Ynys Mon (Anglesey). The sole survivor was Alyn and Deeside. The reasons why it was the exception are well worth investigation.
The first point to be made is that Alyn and Deeside is in effect not all that Welsh. It ranks 40th out of the current 40 constituencies for inhabitants being born in Wales – in fact, only 42% of its residents in the most recently available census were, compared with 51% born in England (only Montgomeryshire of the current seats also has a minority born in Wales). Admittedly this is partly because of the proximity to the nearest city with major hospitals, Chester, just across the border, rather than mass English immigration. However it is still true that much of Alyn & Deeside is really in the orbit of the larger country – and specifically the sub region within North West England of Merseyside, which has been notably good ground for Labour for decades. It is hard to see in some places where the national border lies; for example it is quite widely asserted that all but one corner flag of the football pitch in the stadium of Chester FC is in Wales; in fact all four corner flags are. Therefore while Alyn and Deeside looks very exceptional just on an electoral map of Wales,
stateofwales.com/2019/12/uk-election-2019-the-results/
this misses the context of the Labour seats just on the other side of the border. No part of this seat is more than around ten miles from England and most of it is within five. In the 2011 census only 13.2% of residents of the Flintshire authority reported that they could speak Welsh, and in the previous figures available by parliamentary division the Alyn & Deeside portion reported under 10% compared with Delyn (further north and west within the historic county) of nearly 18%. Plaid Cymru have never reached even 4% of the vote in the ten general elections since 1983, one of five seats where they have never saved their deposit. (The others, credit greenhert, are Brecon & Radnorshire, Cardiff Central, Monmouth, and Newport East.)
The River Alyn very much skirts the western edge of the seat, but the name of Deeside more accurately reflects the fact that the main centres of population lie along the west bank of the Dee at Connah’s Quay (the largest town in the seat with a population of 17,000), Shotton, Queensferry and Sandycroft. Also included is the inland town of Buckley (some 16,000 souls) and something of a contrast is provided by the more physically attractive villages of Hawarden, Ewloe, Hope and Caergwrle, and the seat extends west just into the beginning of the Clwydian hills around Ffrith. However, overall the population is heavily based near to the border. Alyn & Deeside did swing somewhat less to the Conservatives in 2019 than the other more North ‘Welsh’ seats that fell, such as Ynys Mon and Clwyd South.
However the second reason why it alone survived the blue onslaught was that this was more solid Labour territory in the first place. Unlike constituencies such as Delyn and Vale of Clwyd, Alyn and Deeside has been Labour without a break since its creation under this name in 1983. What is more it is clearly the descendant of the East Flintshire seat that was held by Eirene White and Barry Jones for Labour continuously between its own advent in 1950 and 1983, though the majority in 1959 was just 75 votes. The Alyn & Deeside Senedd seat has also never been won by any party other than Labour, and indeed has stayed in the same family since 2003 – at the age of 23 Jack Sergeant succeeded his father in a 2018 byelection after the latter’s untimely death, and retained the seat with a majority of over 4,300 in May 2021. Labour seem now to be well ahead in this area.
Thirdly, the Labour tradition, still in force even though Mark Tami held on by just 213 votes or 0.5% in 2019, is strongly connected to the economic base of the seat. Alyn & Deeside ranked 6th out of 650 constituencies in the 2011 census for employment in manufacturing. The banks of the Dee within this seat constitute one of the most dramatic centres of heavy, and other, industry in Britain. Here are to be found the giant steelworks, founded in the 19th century and now owned by Tata, formerly known as the Shotton works, though nearer to Connah’s Quay – which is itself is named after a male 19th century industrialist, not some Welsh maiden, and is certainly no thing of beauty or douce riverside resort. Even larger physically than the steel plant are the contiguous Deeside Industrial Estate and Deeside Industrial Park (that would be two separate units, not one, though all within an Enterprise Zone). These are all on the east bank of the Dee, though still just in Wales. On the west bank are the Queensferry power station and another extensive agglomeration of production from the Knauf Insulation Queensferry plant through Ferry Chemicals to Niche Energy Solutions and Ifor Williams Trailers. On the other side of Connah’s Quay lies a second power station. A satellite view of the area reveals the best part of ten kilometres of industrial scenery, still mostly active.
As elsewhere in North Wales, local election results are not the most effective guide to ward preferences due to the strength of Independent candidatures. For example in the unitary Flintshire elections of May 2022, 31 Labour winners were in effect matched by 30 of various species of Independent. There were only two Conservatives and four Liberal Democrats, despite the connection with the great 19th century Liberal William Ewart Gladstone through the inclusion here of his country home at Hawarden Castle. Labour councillors were returned in wards throughout the Alyn and Deeside seat, not only in Buckley, Queensferry & Sealand, and Shotton but also in the less industrial Hawarden and Caergwrle; but there were many split wards, clearly a lot of personal voting, and the independents certainly cannot be seen as a surrogate for any particular party.
In the whole of Wales, there will have to be extensive boundary changes as the number of constituencies is substantially reduced, to equalise constituency sizes and hence representation between the four parts of the UK. This affects Alyn & Deeside less than most, as its electorate in 2019 was 62,783, higher than the Welsh average, and also because of its location on the English border. In the Commission’s revised proposals published in October 2022 and final report of June 2023, around 23% of the present Delyn seat (12,600 electors) is added to Alyn & Deeside - essentially the four wards (on the boundaries used by the Commission) of the town of Flint and the two of Bagillt, on the Dee estuary just to its north. The temptation was resisted to use the historic names of Flint or Flintshire in the seat name even though it was revived as a local authority after 22 years in 1996 and has now been longer in existence than Clwyd ever was; this also seem odder in the case of the newly drawn Clwyd East and Clywd North, but they do at least contain territory that is not in Flintshire.
It is impossible to be sure what exactly the electoral effect of the boundary changes will be. In the most recent Flintshire county council elections (May 2022, on new ward boundaries), Labour returned all five councillors in Flint, now in three wards, while an Independent won a unified Bagillt. The demographic variables compared with the former boundaries are all shifted somewhat downmarket, to less highly educated and more working class occupations, which in previous years would have signified an advantage to labour, but not necessarily in the circumstances of 2019.
However it is certain this enlarged Alyn & Deeside would also have been close between the two major British parties in 2019, with no one else anywhere near contention – and if Labour do not substantially strengthen their grip in 2024 or whenever the next general election takes place they will have no chance of challenging for national government. The 'official' notional estimates for the 2019 general election results on new boundaries, by Michael Thrasher and Colin Rallings, released in January 2024, suggest a Labour lead in Alyn & Deeside of just 411 votes. The Commission is also proposing an ‘alternative name’ of Alun a Glannau Dyfrdwy – though one suspects it may be in more limited use than those of many seats, here in a sector of Wales so strongly tied to a broader economy, culture, and indeed politics.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 19.8% 262/575
Owner occupied 71.1% 150/575
Private rented 13.8% 492/575
Social rented 15.1% 283/575
White 97.3% 52/575
Black 0.2% 540/575
Asian 1.1% 504/575
Managerial & professional 29.0% 384/575
Routine & Semi-routine 30.2% 77/575
Degree level 27.4% 416/575
No qualifications 19.0% 220/575
Students 5.2% 344/575
General Election 2019: Alyn and Deeside
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Mark Tami 18,271 42.5 −9.6
Conservative Sanjoy Sen 18,058 42.0 +1.6
Brexit Party Simon Wall 2,678 6.2 N/A
Liberal Democrats Donna Lalek 2,548 5.9 +3.5
Plaid Cymru Susan Hills 1,453 3.4 +0.8
Lab Majority 213 0.5 −11.2
Turnout 43,008 68.5 −2.5
2019 registered electors 62,783
Labour hold
Swing 5.6 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
The new Alyn and Deeside seat will consist of
100% of Alyn and Deeside
23.1% of Delyn
Map
p45 here
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/sites/bcomm/files/review/E02859434_Boundary%20Commission%20Wales%202023_English_Web%20Accessible_V03.pdf
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
The first point to be made is that Alyn and Deeside is in effect not all that Welsh. It ranks 40th out of the current 40 constituencies for inhabitants being born in Wales – in fact, only 42% of its residents in the most recently available census were, compared with 51% born in England (only Montgomeryshire of the current seats also has a minority born in Wales). Admittedly this is partly because of the proximity to the nearest city with major hospitals, Chester, just across the border, rather than mass English immigration. However it is still true that much of Alyn & Deeside is really in the orbit of the larger country – and specifically the sub region within North West England of Merseyside, which has been notably good ground for Labour for decades. It is hard to see in some places where the national border lies; for example it is quite widely asserted that all but one corner flag of the football pitch in the stadium of Chester FC is in Wales; in fact all four corner flags are. Therefore while Alyn and Deeside looks very exceptional just on an electoral map of Wales,
stateofwales.com/2019/12/uk-election-2019-the-results/
this misses the context of the Labour seats just on the other side of the border. No part of this seat is more than around ten miles from England and most of it is within five. In the 2011 census only 13.2% of residents of the Flintshire authority reported that they could speak Welsh, and in the previous figures available by parliamentary division the Alyn & Deeside portion reported under 10% compared with Delyn (further north and west within the historic county) of nearly 18%. Plaid Cymru have never reached even 4% of the vote in the ten general elections since 1983, one of five seats where they have never saved their deposit. (The others, credit greenhert, are Brecon & Radnorshire, Cardiff Central, Monmouth, and Newport East.)
The River Alyn very much skirts the western edge of the seat, but the name of Deeside more accurately reflects the fact that the main centres of population lie along the west bank of the Dee at Connah’s Quay (the largest town in the seat with a population of 17,000), Shotton, Queensferry and Sandycroft. Also included is the inland town of Buckley (some 16,000 souls) and something of a contrast is provided by the more physically attractive villages of Hawarden, Ewloe, Hope and Caergwrle, and the seat extends west just into the beginning of the Clwydian hills around Ffrith. However, overall the population is heavily based near to the border. Alyn & Deeside did swing somewhat less to the Conservatives in 2019 than the other more North ‘Welsh’ seats that fell, such as Ynys Mon and Clwyd South.
However the second reason why it alone survived the blue onslaught was that this was more solid Labour territory in the first place. Unlike constituencies such as Delyn and Vale of Clwyd, Alyn and Deeside has been Labour without a break since its creation under this name in 1983. What is more it is clearly the descendant of the East Flintshire seat that was held by Eirene White and Barry Jones for Labour continuously between its own advent in 1950 and 1983, though the majority in 1959 was just 75 votes. The Alyn & Deeside Senedd seat has also never been won by any party other than Labour, and indeed has stayed in the same family since 2003 – at the age of 23 Jack Sergeant succeeded his father in a 2018 byelection after the latter’s untimely death, and retained the seat with a majority of over 4,300 in May 2021. Labour seem now to be well ahead in this area.
Thirdly, the Labour tradition, still in force even though Mark Tami held on by just 213 votes or 0.5% in 2019, is strongly connected to the economic base of the seat. Alyn & Deeside ranked 6th out of 650 constituencies in the 2011 census for employment in manufacturing. The banks of the Dee within this seat constitute one of the most dramatic centres of heavy, and other, industry in Britain. Here are to be found the giant steelworks, founded in the 19th century and now owned by Tata, formerly known as the Shotton works, though nearer to Connah’s Quay – which is itself is named after a male 19th century industrialist, not some Welsh maiden, and is certainly no thing of beauty or douce riverside resort. Even larger physically than the steel plant are the contiguous Deeside Industrial Estate and Deeside Industrial Park (that would be two separate units, not one, though all within an Enterprise Zone). These are all on the east bank of the Dee, though still just in Wales. On the west bank are the Queensferry power station and another extensive agglomeration of production from the Knauf Insulation Queensferry plant through Ferry Chemicals to Niche Energy Solutions and Ifor Williams Trailers. On the other side of Connah’s Quay lies a second power station. A satellite view of the area reveals the best part of ten kilometres of industrial scenery, still mostly active.
As elsewhere in North Wales, local election results are not the most effective guide to ward preferences due to the strength of Independent candidatures. For example in the unitary Flintshire elections of May 2022, 31 Labour winners were in effect matched by 30 of various species of Independent. There were only two Conservatives and four Liberal Democrats, despite the connection with the great 19th century Liberal William Ewart Gladstone through the inclusion here of his country home at Hawarden Castle. Labour councillors were returned in wards throughout the Alyn and Deeside seat, not only in Buckley, Queensferry & Sealand, and Shotton but also in the less industrial Hawarden and Caergwrle; but there were many split wards, clearly a lot of personal voting, and the independents certainly cannot be seen as a surrogate for any particular party.
In the whole of Wales, there will have to be extensive boundary changes as the number of constituencies is substantially reduced, to equalise constituency sizes and hence representation between the four parts of the UK. This affects Alyn & Deeside less than most, as its electorate in 2019 was 62,783, higher than the Welsh average, and also because of its location on the English border. In the Commission’s revised proposals published in October 2022 and final report of June 2023, around 23% of the present Delyn seat (12,600 electors) is added to Alyn & Deeside - essentially the four wards (on the boundaries used by the Commission) of the town of Flint and the two of Bagillt, on the Dee estuary just to its north. The temptation was resisted to use the historic names of Flint or Flintshire in the seat name even though it was revived as a local authority after 22 years in 1996 and has now been longer in existence than Clwyd ever was; this also seem odder in the case of the newly drawn Clwyd East and Clywd North, but they do at least contain territory that is not in Flintshire.
It is impossible to be sure what exactly the electoral effect of the boundary changes will be. In the most recent Flintshire county council elections (May 2022, on new ward boundaries), Labour returned all five councillors in Flint, now in three wards, while an Independent won a unified Bagillt. The demographic variables compared with the former boundaries are all shifted somewhat downmarket, to less highly educated and more working class occupations, which in previous years would have signified an advantage to labour, but not necessarily in the circumstances of 2019.
However it is certain this enlarged Alyn & Deeside would also have been close between the two major British parties in 2019, with no one else anywhere near contention – and if Labour do not substantially strengthen their grip in 2024 or whenever the next general election takes place they will have no chance of challenging for national government. The 'official' notional estimates for the 2019 general election results on new boundaries, by Michael Thrasher and Colin Rallings, released in January 2024, suggest a Labour lead in Alyn & Deeside of just 411 votes. The Commission is also proposing an ‘alternative name’ of Alun a Glannau Dyfrdwy – though one suspects it may be in more limited use than those of many seats, here in a sector of Wales so strongly tied to a broader economy, culture, and indeed politics.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 19.8% 262/575
Owner occupied 71.1% 150/575
Private rented 13.8% 492/575
Social rented 15.1% 283/575
White 97.3% 52/575
Black 0.2% 540/575
Asian 1.1% 504/575
Managerial & professional 29.0% 384/575
Routine & Semi-routine 30.2% 77/575
Degree level 27.4% 416/575
No qualifications 19.0% 220/575
Students 5.2% 344/575
General Election 2019: Alyn and Deeside
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Mark Tami 18,271 42.5 −9.6
Conservative Sanjoy Sen 18,058 42.0 +1.6
Brexit Party Simon Wall 2,678 6.2 N/A
Liberal Democrats Donna Lalek 2,548 5.9 +3.5
Plaid Cymru Susan Hills 1,453 3.4 +0.8
Lab Majority 213 0.5 −11.2
Turnout 43,008 68.5 −2.5
2019 registered electors 62,783
Labour hold
Swing 5.6 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
The new Alyn and Deeside seat will consist of
100% of Alyn and Deeside
23.1% of Delyn
Map
p45 here
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/sites/bcomm/files/review/E02859434_Boundary%20Commission%20Wales%202023_English_Web%20Accessible_V03.pdf
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Lab | 22374 | 42.7% |
| Con | 21963 | 42.0% |
| Brexit | 3137 | 6.0% |
| LD | 3095 | 5.9% |
| Plaid Cymru | 1781 | 3.4% |
| | ||
| Majority | 411 | 0.8% |