Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 9, 2023 17:48:46 GMT
In July 2023, the Conservatives narrowly, and against most expectations, held on to the Uxbridge & South Ruislip constituency at a by-election caused by the resignation of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The swing to Labour was less than 7% and this on the same day as majorities of around 20,000 were overturned on 20%+ swings in Selby & Ainsty and Somerton & Frome.
The expansion of ULEZ charging to areas of Outer London like this by the Labour Mayor was credited as being the major factor in this but this may have been partly a proxy for a wider alienation of the outermost London suburbs from political domination by the centre. There is also a bit of a historical pattern here. Labour also failed (again against the odds and expectations) to gain Uxbridge at by-elections in 1972 and in 1997 as well as in the 1997 general election itself.
Uxbridge has formed the basis of a constituency since 1885, initially covering a vast swathe of Western Middlesex but being reduced in scope in 1918 and again in the limited review of 1945. It had been a safe Conservative seat through most of that period but fell to Labour in 1945 despite boundary changes unfavourable to them (removing Southall, Hayes and Northolt).
Further boundary changes in 1950 removed Ruislip Northwood to create a core Uxbridge constituency which survived in similar form for the next sixty years. This boundary change was obviously helpful to Labour, and they held the seat throughout the 1950s until losing it in the 1959 Conservative landslide. Thereafter, the Conservatives held the seat in 1964 and Labour won only narrowly in 1966 which was to be their last ever victory here to date.
Clearly this seat had trended Conservative since the 1950s. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s no party achieved a majority greater than 2,500 except for the Conservatives in 1970. The Conservative majority reached the heights of nearly 8,000 in 1979 and in the following three elections moved into five figures. The trends here bear some similarity to socially similar areas in other parts of Outer London such as in Havering and Bexley.
Uxbridge is a major retail and commercial centre, and middle-income office workers are the typical demographic here.
The close results and low swings here in much of the post-war period do indicate that this is a somewhat socially divided constituency but there are not great extremes of wealth or poverty. Most of the housing development here consists of inter-war semis and a good deal of post-war council-built housing. There are very good residential areas to the North of Uxbridge itself and beyond that the very affluent Ickenham was the main Tory stronghold in the constituency. Labour was strong in Uxbridge South and other communities to the South of Uxbridge itself – Cowley, Colham Green, down in the previously separate Urban District of Yiewsley & West Drayton and along the border with Hayes in Hillingdon Heath. They also enjoyed great strength back in the day in Harefield in the far North of the constituency and the removal of that ward ahead of the 1997 election may have proved crucial to the Conservatives holding on then (though subsequently Labour support has evaporated in Harefield.)
The boundary changes which translated Uxbridge into Uxbridge & South Ruislip ahead of the 2010 election were sweeping without having major partisan effects. It might be thought that bringing in a large part of the safely Conservative Ruislip Northwood seat would boost the Conservatives here but for various reasons this is not the case. Although the marginal area of West Drayton was removed in the South, the massive Conservative stronghold of Ickenham was lost in the North, leaving a core of Uxbridge which overall would be less favourable to the Conservatives than the previous seat. Meanwhile the replacement in the form of ‘South Ruislip’ was not enough to compensate for the loss of Ickenham.
The South Ruislip ward itself (and predecessor wards of Bourne and Deansfield) had often returned Labour councillors and was a distinctly downmarket part of the constituency from which it came. Manor and Cavendish wards, covering the southern parts of Ruislip proper and Eastcote respectively, were somewhat more upmarket than South Ruislip itself but not at all as opulent as the parts of Ruislip, Eastcote and Northwood which remained in that seat. They are strongly owner-occupied but consist mostly of inter-war semis and have a generally lower middle-class population. They were also, for many years, areas of considerable Lib Dem strength in local elections, again a far-cry from the Tory monoliths in Eastcote and West Ruislip etc.
South Ruislip (which is the local base of the new MP Steve Tuckwell) is the kind of very Havering-like area that has trended quite strongly to the Conservatives in recent decades but there are some signs that the demographic trends may be starting to move in the opposite direction. Given the proximity of areas like South Harrow and Northolt, it is perhaps surprising that this area remained so overwhelmingly white for as long as it did, but it does appear this may be starting to change now.
Over 25% of the population of this seat are now Asian according to the 2021 census and over 40% overall non-white (with White British being in the minority)
Similar demographic trends may be having even more effect in the Uxbridge core of the seat, (again unsurprising given the proximity of Hayes etc.) and this will account for the slipping of the margin in the last couple of general elections compared with the previous two, with Labour achieving 40% of the vote in 2017. To achieve that kind of score they must have been able to win the southernmost wards of Uxbridge South and Yiewsley and been competitive also in Hillingdon East, Brunel and South Ruislip. Brunel had been a consistently Conservative held ward from its creation in 2002 to its abolition 20 years later, and does include some good residential areas but as the name suggests, it included the University of the same name with a certain number of students resident and these are a significant source of Labour support in that ward and others (the absence of students at the time of the by-election may well have been a decisive factor then).
Most of the boundary changes here are the effect of realignment with new ward boundaries – the Southern half of the new Eastcote ward (the old Cavendish ward) is perforce moved into Ruislip, Northwood & Pinner so in exchange the Ickenham & South Harefield ward is returned to this seat. In the revised recommendations Harefield Village was also to be added and Ruislip Manor returned the other way, which would have brought the boundaries much closer to the pre-1997 ones, but in the final recommendations the Boundary Commission reverted to their original plan. Ickenham will be welcome back in the fold from a Conservative perspective, but this will be balanced out by the loss of Southern Eastcote which is no less solid for them now.
Conservative strength tends to decrease the further south one goes. At the most recent local elections (the first on new ward boundaries) in 2022, the Conservatives won easily in Ickenham and Ruislip Manor and only a bit less easily in South Ruislip. Both Hillingdon wards (East and West) were clearly Conservative but with a sizeable Labour minority while Colham & Cowley to the South (which now includes Brunel) was marginally Conservative. The Uxbridge ward itself (a merger of the old North and South wards but dominated by the latter) split its representation to elect two Conservatives and one Labour councillor. Finally, Yiewsley in the far South of the constituency was very comfortably won by Labour, even though the ward (on slightly different boundaries) had voted Conservative four years earlier. In the by-election its likely these last three wards voted Labour, with the Hillingdon wards being close and the Ruslip wards and Ickenham being clearly Conservative.
It is fair to say that unlike in 1974 and 1997, Labour will not be able to form a majority without winning this seat and despite multiple disappointments here, including in the most recent by-election, this should fall to them in the general election, when many of the factors which thwarted them then will be absent, assuming they maintain anything approaching their current polling lead between then and now.
The expansion of ULEZ charging to areas of Outer London like this by the Labour Mayor was credited as being the major factor in this but this may have been partly a proxy for a wider alienation of the outermost London suburbs from political domination by the centre. There is also a bit of a historical pattern here. Labour also failed (again against the odds and expectations) to gain Uxbridge at by-elections in 1972 and in 1997 as well as in the 1997 general election itself.
Uxbridge has formed the basis of a constituency since 1885, initially covering a vast swathe of Western Middlesex but being reduced in scope in 1918 and again in the limited review of 1945. It had been a safe Conservative seat through most of that period but fell to Labour in 1945 despite boundary changes unfavourable to them (removing Southall, Hayes and Northolt).
Further boundary changes in 1950 removed Ruislip Northwood to create a core Uxbridge constituency which survived in similar form for the next sixty years. This boundary change was obviously helpful to Labour, and they held the seat throughout the 1950s until losing it in the 1959 Conservative landslide. Thereafter, the Conservatives held the seat in 1964 and Labour won only narrowly in 1966 which was to be their last ever victory here to date.
Clearly this seat had trended Conservative since the 1950s. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s no party achieved a majority greater than 2,500 except for the Conservatives in 1970. The Conservative majority reached the heights of nearly 8,000 in 1979 and in the following three elections moved into five figures. The trends here bear some similarity to socially similar areas in other parts of Outer London such as in Havering and Bexley.
Uxbridge is a major retail and commercial centre, and middle-income office workers are the typical demographic here.
The close results and low swings here in much of the post-war period do indicate that this is a somewhat socially divided constituency but there are not great extremes of wealth or poverty. Most of the housing development here consists of inter-war semis and a good deal of post-war council-built housing. There are very good residential areas to the North of Uxbridge itself and beyond that the very affluent Ickenham was the main Tory stronghold in the constituency. Labour was strong in Uxbridge South and other communities to the South of Uxbridge itself – Cowley, Colham Green, down in the previously separate Urban District of Yiewsley & West Drayton and along the border with Hayes in Hillingdon Heath. They also enjoyed great strength back in the day in Harefield in the far North of the constituency and the removal of that ward ahead of the 1997 election may have proved crucial to the Conservatives holding on then (though subsequently Labour support has evaporated in Harefield.)
The boundary changes which translated Uxbridge into Uxbridge & South Ruislip ahead of the 2010 election were sweeping without having major partisan effects. It might be thought that bringing in a large part of the safely Conservative Ruislip Northwood seat would boost the Conservatives here but for various reasons this is not the case. Although the marginal area of West Drayton was removed in the South, the massive Conservative stronghold of Ickenham was lost in the North, leaving a core of Uxbridge which overall would be less favourable to the Conservatives than the previous seat. Meanwhile the replacement in the form of ‘South Ruislip’ was not enough to compensate for the loss of Ickenham.
The South Ruislip ward itself (and predecessor wards of Bourne and Deansfield) had often returned Labour councillors and was a distinctly downmarket part of the constituency from which it came. Manor and Cavendish wards, covering the southern parts of Ruislip proper and Eastcote respectively, were somewhat more upmarket than South Ruislip itself but not at all as opulent as the parts of Ruislip, Eastcote and Northwood which remained in that seat. They are strongly owner-occupied but consist mostly of inter-war semis and have a generally lower middle-class population. They were also, for many years, areas of considerable Lib Dem strength in local elections, again a far-cry from the Tory monoliths in Eastcote and West Ruislip etc.
South Ruislip (which is the local base of the new MP Steve Tuckwell) is the kind of very Havering-like area that has trended quite strongly to the Conservatives in recent decades but there are some signs that the demographic trends may be starting to move in the opposite direction. Given the proximity of areas like South Harrow and Northolt, it is perhaps surprising that this area remained so overwhelmingly white for as long as it did, but it does appear this may be starting to change now.
Over 25% of the population of this seat are now Asian according to the 2021 census and over 40% overall non-white (with White British being in the minority)
Similar demographic trends may be having even more effect in the Uxbridge core of the seat, (again unsurprising given the proximity of Hayes etc.) and this will account for the slipping of the margin in the last couple of general elections compared with the previous two, with Labour achieving 40% of the vote in 2017. To achieve that kind of score they must have been able to win the southernmost wards of Uxbridge South and Yiewsley and been competitive also in Hillingdon East, Brunel and South Ruislip. Brunel had been a consistently Conservative held ward from its creation in 2002 to its abolition 20 years later, and does include some good residential areas but as the name suggests, it included the University of the same name with a certain number of students resident and these are a significant source of Labour support in that ward and others (the absence of students at the time of the by-election may well have been a decisive factor then).
Most of the boundary changes here are the effect of realignment with new ward boundaries – the Southern half of the new Eastcote ward (the old Cavendish ward) is perforce moved into Ruislip, Northwood & Pinner so in exchange the Ickenham & South Harefield ward is returned to this seat. In the revised recommendations Harefield Village was also to be added and Ruislip Manor returned the other way, which would have brought the boundaries much closer to the pre-1997 ones, but in the final recommendations the Boundary Commission reverted to their original plan. Ickenham will be welcome back in the fold from a Conservative perspective, but this will be balanced out by the loss of Southern Eastcote which is no less solid for them now.
Conservative strength tends to decrease the further south one goes. At the most recent local elections (the first on new ward boundaries) in 2022, the Conservatives won easily in Ickenham and Ruislip Manor and only a bit less easily in South Ruislip. Both Hillingdon wards (East and West) were clearly Conservative but with a sizeable Labour minority while Colham & Cowley to the South (which now includes Brunel) was marginally Conservative. The Uxbridge ward itself (a merger of the old North and South wards but dominated by the latter) split its representation to elect two Conservatives and one Labour councillor. Finally, Yiewsley in the far South of the constituency was very comfortably won by Labour, even though the ward (on slightly different boundaries) had voted Conservative four years earlier. In the by-election its likely these last three wards voted Labour, with the Hillingdon wards being close and the Ruslip wards and Ickenham being clearly Conservative.
It is fair to say that unlike in 1974 and 1997, Labour will not be able to form a majority without winning this seat and despite multiple disappointments here, including in the most recent by-election, this should fall to them in the general election, when many of the factors which thwarted them then will be absent, assuming they maintain anything approaching their current polling lead between then and now.