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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 9, 2024 9:37:46 GMT
Independent Green Voice have been on the party register continuously since 2003 and the Electoral Commission was clearly happy to accept their registration and logo on the basis that they couldn't be confused with anybody else. Albeit (IIRC) in an era when other parties generally only discovered new registrations once they were on the register. Did anyone try a legal challenge to the registration at the time? Heads or deputy heads? |
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,905
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Post by YL on Mar 9, 2024 9:39:28 GMT
As I've already hinted I think the question here is exactly what the nature of the confusion is.
Is it that people think that the Independent Green Voice candidate is actually the mainstream Green candidate, along the lines of Literal Democrats and Conversatives and other fake and deliberately misleading candidates from before the registration era? There may be a few like this, and if it's happening on a significant scale then I'd accept the Electoral Commission has made a mistake allowing the registration (or possibly just the logo, if that's the problem, as BBS suggests), but it seems a bit unlikely to me: you'd have to be a very careless reader to confuse "Independent Green Voice" with "Scottish Green Party", and the AV system ought to encourage people to read the ballot paper properly anyway. As we can see, several voters preferenced both candidates.
Or is it that some people see "Independent Green Voice" on the ballot paper and like the sound of it, because they're actually interested in voting for someone with green politics independent of the Scottish Green Party (and, perhaps, its nationalist tendencies)? If so then, yes, the name is dishonest, as that's not what IGV actually are, but that's not the EC's problem: even BBS accepts that the EC shouldn't be policing ideologies.
BBS's other concern seems to be that they are a "fake party": that they don't campaign and are really just a line on the ballot paper, but they are hardly unique in putting up paper candidates, their candidate was clearly real and there are enough of them to have had lists on the ballot paper in Scottish Parliament elections.
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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 10, 2024 20:29:09 GMT
For the record here is Independent Green Voice's register entry, including all its emblems: search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Registrations/PP293The main controversy seems to stem from 2021 when they got a new emblem signed off in late March, i.e. just before all the deadlines for the Scottish Parliament elections. Up until then their emblems had been a "Right forearm with clenched hand making a thumbsup sign" (with variation between all black and striped backgrounds) but in 2021 they added a totally different emblem of a leaf with the party name, with GREEN in significantly larger text. The main source of complaint seems to come from the 2021 list results in Glasgow and South Scotland. In Glasgow the Greens were about a thousand votes short of taking a second list seat with IGV getting 2,210. In South Scotland the Greens were about a hundred votes short of getting an MSP (and thus list members covering the entire of Scotland) and IGV got 1,690. (Though this was an election with lots of talk of ticket splitting to maximise the number of MSPs for one side of the constitutional debate or the other. So they might also look to Alba getting 5,408 in Glasgow and 3,896 in South Scotland.) The Ferret ran a couple of pieces on this straight after the 2021 election: theferret.scot/electoral-commission-green-party-far-right/theferret.scot/ffs-scottish-greens-independent-green-voice/If accurate it seems the Scottish Greens did not lodge an objection when the new emblem was submitted. I suspect they didn't have anyone monitoring the registration applications to spot spoilers. I did notice the party at the time but thought it was a new application not a long-standing obscure one: "Independent Green Voice" shouldn't be accepted should it? I thought this register was aiming to cut off the "Independent [Established Political Party name]" descriptions. |
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Post by andrewp on Mar 12, 2024 12:55:25 GMT
A belated update on local by election statistics this municipal year, following the four contests on 06 and 07/03/24
Excluding countermanded elections, up to 7th March 2024 there have now been 154 ordinary by elections for 156 seats since May 4th 2023
The Conservatives have defended 43- Held 17 and lost 26: 5 to the Greens, 15 to the Lib Dems, 5 to Labour and 1 to an Independent. ( retention rate 40%) and have gained 10
Labour have defended 51- Held 36 and lost 15- 5 to the Conservatives, 5 to Independents, 3 to the Lib Dems and 2 to the Greens( retention rate 71%) and have gained 11
Lib Dems have defended 28- Held 25 and lost 3, 1 each to the Conservatives and Greens and 1 to an Independent ( retention rate 89% ) and have gained 22
Greens have defended 9- Held 5 and lost 4: 1 each to the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and to an Independent( retention rate 56%) and have gained 10
There have been elections for 11 seats previously won by Independents: 5 have been won by an another Independent , 2 have been lost to the Greens and 1 each to the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru.And Independents have gained 9
Residents/ local groups have defended 6, held 4 and lost 2 to the Lib Dems.
SNP have defended 5, lost 5, 2 to the Conservatives and 3 to Labour ( retention rate 0%)
PC have defended 3, held 1 , lost 2, 1 to Labour and 1 to an Independent (retention rate 33%) and have gained 1
Overall net changes
Con -16
Lab -4
LD +19
Green +6
Ind + 3
SNP -5
PC -1
Res/ local groups -2
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