Liberal Democrat campaigner Chris Wiggin has announced that he will not seek the party’s nomination for the forthcoming parliamentary by-election in Barnsley Central, to be triggered shortly by the announced resignation of the sitting MP Eric Illsley.
Chris, who stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Barnsley Central in the May 2010 General Election and came second with 6,394 votes, indicated that he will concentrate his efforts on standing in Heslington ward in this year’s City of York Council elections.
Chris said:
It was an honour standing for Parliament last year in Barnsley Central for the first time. I was delighted to secure second place for the Liberal Democrats and it was a great learning experience for me.
Having pleaded guilty, Eric Illsley had no choice but to resign. It is inconceivable that someone who has betrayed voters in this way could continue to serve as an MP. The people of Barnsley Central deserve better.
However, York is my home and I want to focus on campaigning to win in Heslington at the local elections in May.
Living locally means I can work with residents to address the issues that concern them the most and ensure that they have a strong voice representing them.
I have enjoyed meeting the residents of Heslington over the last few months, and I look forward to continuing to work with them and for them.
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21 Comments
#deactivatethewiggin
I wonder who’ll put themselves forward for the job? I’ll do it if no-one else offers?
It is one of Labours’ safest seats so it will be a tough fight.
I fully understand Chris’ decision to concentrate on fighting
the local elections in his home city and the party will now
have to start the process of selecting a new candidate.
Is it possible that the byelection will be held on the same
day as the local elections?
It is possible that it will be the same day as the locals as Illsley is yet to quit but I would imagine it will be before as Labour, sensing a win, will want to get on with it.
There is a view that Labour will want to hold the likely by-election for Barnsley Central on the same day as the likely by-election for Leicester South.
Its not going to be a tough fight it will be another slaughter – a tough fight would be Cleggs seat which we would loose at the moment – quite rightly too. We can’t go around going out of our way supporting the tories, showing people we are liars and then our leaders lying to us repeatedly and get away with it. I think he should work hard to keep his seat in May. He will most probably be one of the hundreds of us voted out as a direct result of clegg selling us to the tory party. Again, I don’t blame the public and i I wasn’t a member of the party I think I would be voting against us in May as well. Clegg needs to go now so that we can reclaim our party and allow it to go back to the left of centre where it belongs.
best of luck in May Chris!
Dave, you really needn’t stay on our account, you know.
Being nervous of the pressures of coalition is one thing, but if all you can do is talk the party down and slag off people who are working hard to clear up the mess inherited from the last government then I suggest you take your business across the street because Ed Miliband is running a whole party for people like you.
Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
@Benjamin
Am i right in thinking that your name is blue, this means you are staff on this site. If not my advanced apologies. If so i thik you should look at the way you deal with people with apposing opinions. Myabe a bit more diplomacy. The critiscism is hard to har, I understand that, but there is no excuse for rudeness.
Back on topic.
Barnsley Central is my constituency and it is indeed a Labour stronghold, always has been. But at the last election I spoke to many people in the town that were finally turning their back on Labour due to their polocies, mainly over the last 5 years, and saw Libdem as the alternative.
All I hear from them now is why they will be voting Labour again, or BNP, as the libdems have let them down.
In fact, if Eric Illsley stood again for the labour party he would undoubtedly increase his majority. This is a damning inditement of the way the libdems are percieved in Barnsley now. As far as voters in Barnsley are concerned they may as well vote tory, cause thats what they get with libdems.
Its been a hard battle in Barnsley and the last few months have set us back 10 years. How do we fix this.?
@sam
Benjamin is not staff, the blue indicates that he has provided an e-mail address and weblink that you can access should you click on his name.
As I indicated further up the thread, I’d be quite happy to knock on every door in Barnsley and talk to voters about what the Lib Dems are doing in government – the choice for the people in Barnsley is whether to choose a Lib Dem who will work hard for them, will represent the town and will have a say on government policy; or to reward Labour for its member’s fraud, for ruining our economy, and for having no alternative policies. After 13 years of Labour (and a whole lot more locally), what has been achieved? Unemployment up, people poorer, no private sector businesses coming in, and the public sector growth a complete illusion; education standards falling, crime an issue, service standards across the board falling; people with Barnsley can stick with what they know, and they know the outcome; or they can vote for a different better party that might actually make their lives and place they live better…
This isa very nice argument, Andrew. The problem is that in Barnsley Central you are having to overturn a lot more than a few years of ingrained traditional voting. I live in the constituency next to Barnsley Central and although the state of things have undoubtedly fluctuated over the past 13 years, for most people they are infinitely better than the state things were in when the tories were last in power and I agree with them (sure, what recovery there has been could be purely coincidental but Labour will still get the benefit). It’s going to take a few more generations for the tories to shake off the image of the Government that killed Barnsley and unfortunately their unpopularity is going to taint the Lib Dems for quite a while as well, even if the coalition should end.
The local Labour party has been returned to its natural position of strength as a stalwart opposition outpost and thorn in the side of Whitehall (a position which it even maintained during the years of NuLabour) and has finally regained it’s old enemy, a tory government. If you want to stand even a chance of getting votes, you’ll have to knock on every door and absolutely trash the conservatives which will get a few votes but I imagine not impress LD HQ.
Why not put up a single coalition candidate. Michael Gove has, in parliament, suggested that voters act tactically in either supporting the Lib Dems or the Tories. Consolidating the two parties into one would be a more honest way of permitting this behaviour.
As has already been pointed out, I’m not “staff” of the site – last I checked they didn’t even have any.
And anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not at all afraid of a debate. But there is a difference between discussing policies or strategies in a calm and rational manner and what a few people like Dave have taken to doing and actively willing defeat and disaster on our own party. We have enough problems getting out message across without the people who ought to be the party’s advocates – our members and activists – selling the Labour line of doom and gloom, betrayal and sour grapes.
Back on Barnsley, there are plenty of people who will never vote for us – it’s Barnsley after all – but winning this by-election is really not the issue. We need to show people how wrong it is to assume we are done for as a party, so we must campaign for a good result in this by-election (and any others that might crop up) to demonstrate that Labour MPs in safe seats shouldn’t rest on their laurels as if they are unassailable and to remind people we still exist as a political force and that we are the progressive alternative to Labour in most of the country.
G – we will run separate candidates because we are separate parties with separate agendas, policies and beliefs. If people who previously supported one of the parties in the current coalition wish to tactically lend their support to the other then they will be just as welcome as any other voter and will get us one vote closer to victory. Equally, if people wish to switch from Labour, the Greens, the Barnsley Independents or whatever, then as long as they are switching to the Lib Dems and not away from, I’m happy. But that tactical switch is the voter’s choice. Even if the local Lib Dems and Tories could agree on a voting pact and a single candidate and policy platform (we couldn’t and wouldn’t), it would be totally unfair to make that choice on the voter’s behalf.
As I see it – this is a non-story. Mr Wiggin was selected as a paper candidate for Barnsley Central anyway, did nothing in the General Election – including never once setting foot inside the Constituency, not putting out a single piece of literature and not even attending the count so I hear.
Coming 2nd was left to total chance. I’m guessing has not even had the courtesy to speak with the local party to see if they would even want him as their candidate now that they have a chance to look at other options.
@Nigel Ashton: …the likely by-election for Leicester South.
That’s the first I’ve heard of it! The current MP doesn’t seem to have any expenses skeletons in his cupboard. Has he announced his resignation, and if so why?
@Niklas Smith
re. the likely by-election for Leicester South. It’s nothing to do with expenses, but because Peter Soulsby is tipped to become his party’s candidate for Mayor of Leicester.
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:94294e8c-87bc-4aa8-86f3-d79bc5513d32
Given the circumstances, surely this seat “ought” to have been a realistic prospect for the LD’s to win in a by-election? The fact that it isn’t only reinforces the misgivings many people have about the direction of the party. Without the votes of many people on the centre left who have profound misgivings about the Coalition and its programme, and have (as many posts on this site attest) been abandoning the party, how can any progress realistically be expected?
What is noteable, and lamentable in my view, is the hostile reception which seems to be habitual on this site to anyone daring to criticise the party. What we don’t need is people who support the Coalition further alienating those whose votes propelled the party from a handful of seats to it’s current position.
If what you want is slavish adherence to the current party line, why not just make it members only?
What is it that those of you who so savagely attack people protesting about the Coalition are so scared of?
Andy – criticism is one thing, but it is just not constructive for people claiming to be Lib Dems or ex-Lib Dems to simply respond to every thread on the site by telling us that everything Labour says or does is right, that we are all doomed and that we deserve it.
If you have some way of getting out of Gordon Brown’s mess without cutting spending then please tell somebody what it is, but otherwise people need to accept that in order to eventually – after about 10 years at this rate – stop spending more money than there is and start paying off the debts Labour ran up, there have to be spending cuts and the question is simply one of priorities.
Anyone who doesn’t have the stomach for actually running the country and would rather just stay in opposition forever criticising the government but never getting to do any of the things we promise – why bother?
Andy, even in the most optimistic scenario for a byelection, Barnsley Central would not be remotely winnable. As Veeten has carefully explained in current conditions we have zero chance.
@ Benjamin
That isn’t what is happening at all! There are PLENTY of ex LD voters and members who are at their wits end about where the decision to enter the Coalition leaves them politically. It is a grotesque charicature to say that such people believe everything Labour says is right. I have no more love for Labour (and particularly New Labour) than I do for the Tories.
Attempting to hide the perilous state of the party behind criticisms that ANY principled opposition is not constructive, or can be simply be dismissed because some of it prophesies doom and destruction, is just a cop out. What is worse, on a site which purports to be open to all, the overtly hostile reception often given looks like an attempt to stifle debate.
It betrays a certain desperation on the part of those who support the Coalition who insist that everything is just hunky dory, when it clearly isn’t. Remember that there are many still within the party who are deeply unhappy with the current direction, and similarly many like me who will take a lot of convincing to return to the fold.
Of course there are alternatives to current policies. Many economists feel that the Coalition are cutting too far, too fast; indeed that was what the LD’s were saying prior to the election. The narrative that things were worse than expected, and/or that it was ALL Labour’s fault is unconvincing. Light touch regulation would have been even lighter had the Tories been in charge, and whatever Labour’s faults they didn’t bring about the recession on their own.
Similarly with the cuts; nobody is saying there shouldn’t be any, the issue is are those being introduced the right ones, are they progressive, and are they well planned and thought out. The answer in many cases of course is no. Nobody is expecting the junior Coalition partner to get everything it wants, but many former and current supporters believe that the initial deal was flawed, and that actions since bear this out. I for one have seen nothing that convinces me otherwise.
It isn’t a case of wanting to be in perpetual opposition, or being afraid of compromise, or of any Coalition with the Tories (altho’ I realise that it comforts those who support the Coalition to characterise opponents that way!!), it IS a case of thinking that sometimes a bad deal is worth walking away from, and that this particular deal was and is bad for the party and the country.
Time will tell who is proved to be correct of course, but it seems to me that steering the party on it’s current course is a lot more questionable than principled opposition, since it risks reducing the party to a centrist rump undoing decades of work in a few months.
@ Tim 13
In current conditions, yes; that’s rather my point. There is zero chance in Barnsley and many other areas (some probably more promising) due to the current position of the party, and the policies it is identified with. Similarly with Oldham & Saddleworth – given the circumstances, it ought to have been a shoo-in. The reasons it wasn’t are self evident.
Well yes – there is zero chance of you getting in here in Barnsley – I didn’t get a leaflet from you through my door for the general election (the BNP managed to) and when I emailed you to see if you were fielding a candidate I got no response. (i’m still waiting….) I eventually found out (probably on examination of my ballot paper) that the candidate was from York so probably had never set foot in Barnsley.
I have voted liberal every general election since I could vote. but no more. I feel very let down by the LibDems on many levels.