On Thursday, 52000 people went to the polls in Copeland and Stoke on Trent Central to elect their new MPs. Both seats were previously held by Labour. Labour held onto Stoke, but were beaten by the Conservatives in Copeland. People are using these results in order to speculate wildly about the future of various political parties. Labour holding Stoke is a good sign. Labour losing Copeland means Corbyn should resign. Conservatives taking Copeland is a sign of support for May’s hard Brexit. Everyone is very happy that Nuttall lost. And so on.
However, looking at the voting data available, I think there are two far more important warnings to be taken from these results. We need to look at the numbers, which I’ll round out for the sake of easier reading. All stats are taken from Britain Elects so please check there for exact figures.
Firstly, a lot of voters are walking away from this vote unrepresented. In Stoke, Labour won by gaining 37.1% of the vote. In Copeland, Conservatives took 44.3% of the vote. This means that 62.9% and 55.7% of the people who voted are not being represented by the person they wanted. That translates into roughly 30,000 people across two constituencies, against only 21,000 who did get what they wanted.
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