Euroelections 2014: South East Region
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alanjjohnstone wrote:Socialist Party of Great Britain5,033 votes 0.24%
Not sure where that figure came from but I've just heard the returning officer give our vote as 5454…
Socialist Party of Great Britain6,838 Seems to definitely be 5,454 + 1,384http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/vote2014/eu-uk-results
The count took place in 67 "local council areas", corresponding to the 67 local councils in the area. These figures were then sent on to the regional returning officer in Southampton who then collated them and applied the D'Hondt (a famous Belgian) rule to attribute the 10 seats proportionately. Four of us attended separate counts, Rob in Dover, Danny in Sevenoaks, Sean in Hastings and myself in Southampton.The full result dor the South East Region is:UKIP 751,439Tories 723,671Labour 342,775Greens 211,706LibDems 187,876Ind from Europe 45,199English Dems 17,771BNP 16,909Christians 14,893Peace Party 10,130SPGB 5,454Roman Party 2,997Your Voice 2932Liberty GB 2494Harmony Party 1904The turnout throughout the region was 36.5%.The result confirms our past experience that there is some relationship between our vote and the Labour vote, i.e that we do better in Labour areas. The South East is a solid Tory area with Labour in this election getting only 14.5% of the total vote. The combined Tory/UKIP (and UKIP are essentially Tory eurosceptics) vote amounts to 63%.The results from the local counting areas were posted on boards at Southampton civic centre when they came in. Our highest number of votes was in Brighton & Hove at 397 and our highest percentage (twice our average) was in Oxford where we got 221 votes. In both these areas we beat the BNP, as we did in Lewes (just north of Brighton). In fact the collapse of the BNP vote is a feature of the election. In Southampton, for instance, their vote fell from 2,848 in 2009 to 528 last night. Most of course will have gone to UKIP.Our next best in terms of votes was 249 in Southampton. Reading at 114 was disappointing, less than Basingstoke's 116. Others were we got into triple figures were Milton Keynes (182), Medway (171), Portsmouth (162), Canterbury (159), Hastings (113) and Shepway (100). Our worst results were 22 in Surrey Heath and 20 in South Bucks. A word of caution, though, absolute figures are not comparable in view of the varying number of voters in the different areas. We will have to wait for the full local area results to be put on the internet before we can draw up a list of where we did better than average.Besides the publicity we got for the socialist case, the election has already identified areas where we should concentrate our follow-up: Oxford, Brighton and the Medway.
I think we should out of comradely courtesy acknowledge our appreciation to the Oxford Communist Corresponding Society for their assistance. I think they should be included in any follow-up campaigns strategy in Oxford – joint public meeting?As Steve Colburn has explained, if our candidates can be encouraged to carry on writing to their local press it keeps our name known. Perhaps signing as Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement prospective candidate albeit stretching the truth a little bit. Actually, i did suggest on a thread we stop playing the nice guys…so all the defeated candidates can send off a letter implicitedly NOT congratulating the winner all as the usual custom is at these results but instead vilifying them all as undeserving victors!
ALB wrote:The result confirms our past experience that there is some relationship between our vote and the Labour vote, i.e that we do better in Labour areas. The South East is a solid Tory area with Labour in this election getting only 14.5% of the total vote. The combined Tory/UKIP (and UKIP are essentially Tory eurosceptics) vote amounts to 63%.I thought we recieved a higher percentage of the vote in the south east than we did in Wales. 0.19% in Wales compared to 0.23% in SE. Unless of course we put that down to votes being cast for us in the SE due to the lack of 'competition' from left wing parties. In which case perhaps we did not convey the fact that we are not a left party strongly enough.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I think we should out of comradely courtesy acknowledge our appreciation to the Oxford Communist Corresponding Society for their assistance. I think they should be included in any follow-up campaigns strategy in Oxford – joint public meeting?It could be 'acknowledged' but I think 'appreciation' would set a dangerous precedent in respect of Clause 7 'the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.' Other than that, by all means, follow up campaigns, send speakers to their meetings etc.
Ed wrote:I thought we recieved a higher percentage of the vote in the south east than we did in Wales. 0.19% in Wales compared to 0.23% in SE. Unless of course we put that down to votes being cast for us in the SE due to the lack of 'competition' from left wing parties. In which case perhaps we did not convey the fact that we are not a left party strongly enough.I think my hypothesis (confirmed by other examples) that we do better in Labour than in Tory areas still stands. As the results from Rhondda and to a certain extent Neath (areas where we had our manifesto distributed to every household) show, if we had had them distributed in the other ex-mining and solid Labour areas too (where our results were ridiculous: 23 in Blaneau Gwent, which includes Ebbw Vale were Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot were MPs, and 26 in Merthyr, where Kier Hardie was once MP) we'd have got more votes in Wales. Whether they'd be fully socialist rather than nostalgic trade union conscious votes is another matter.As I said in the thread on the election in Wales I don't regard No2EU as being "left" even in the confused sense of this term. If it's any consolation to you, when I spoke in the hustings in Lewisham someone asked all those on the platform who considered themselves leftwing to put their hand up. I didn't (nor did Lewisham People before Profit) while No2EU, the Greens and the National Health Action Party did.
I think that we should be grateful to the CCS for their efforts, which have surely contributed to our relatively favourable result in Oxford. On the issue of clause 7, the CCS is not a party, it's a discussion group, and therefore even less deserving of hostility.
ALB wrote:Ed wrote:I thought we recieved a higher percentage of the vote in the south east than we did in Wales. 0.19% in Wales compared to 0.23% in SE. Unless of course we put that down to votes being cast for us in the SE due to the lack of 'competition' from left wing parties. In which case perhaps we did not convey the fact that we are not a left party strongly enough.I think my hypothesis (confirmed by other examples) that we do better in Labour than in Tory areas still stands. As the results from Rhondda and to a certain extent Neath (areas where we had our manifesto distributed to every household) show, if we had had them distributed in the other ex-mining and solid Labour areas too (where our results were ridiculous: 23 in Blaneau Gwent, which includes Ebbw Vale were Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot were MPs, and 26 in Merthyr, where Kier Hardie was once MP) we'd have got more votes in Wales. Whether they'd be fully socialist rather than nostalgic trade union conscious votes is another matter.As I said in the thread on the election in Wales I don't regard No2EU as being "left" even in the confused sense of this term. If it's any consolation to you, when I spoke in the hustings in Lewisham someone asked all those on the platform who considered themselves leftwing to put their hand up. I didn't (nor did Lewisham People before Profit) while No2EU, the Greens and the National Health Action Party did.
I agree that I would have expected that we should get a higher percentage of the vote in Wales. Yet we didn't. Albeit by only a small margin of 0.04%. Do you think that the greater distribution of leaflets in the SE helped to produce this anomoly? Does this tell us anything about the power of leaflets over the PPB?
"Actually, i did suggest on a thread we stop playing the nice guys…so all the defeated candidates can send off a letter implicitedly NOT congratulating the winner all as the usual custom is at these results but instead vilifying them all as undeserving victors!"As individual candidates and as a Party, we should be pushing the line that the results of this election merely continue the minority ownership of society by a infinitesimally small section of society and as a censequence, leaves we, the vast majority, in varying degrees of poverty, insecurity and want and that this is nothing to congratulate the "victors" on.AJJ is moreover right in urging all the candidates to keep the Party name in the spotlight, with letters to the press etc.Finally, well done to each and every member on your efforts. It has been a pleasure to see all of the posts on the activity carried out over the last month or so. : )
Attack who you want, it will not yield one more new member. Now is the time to consolidate those 6838 votes. Send letters to the local press, thanking those farsighted citizens who voted for the SPGB. Let them know that the SPGB are at hand all of the time, not just when votes are needed.
Ed wrote:Unless of course we put that down to votes being cast for us in the SE due to the lack of 'competition' from left wing parties. In which case perhaps we did not convey the fact that we are not a left party strongly enough.Actually, the result in the South East in percentage terms is almost exactly the same as it was in the London Region last time, in 2009, when we got 4050 votes (0.2%) when faced with both SLP and No2EU "competition":http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/result.htmlWithout such competition this time we still get 2 in a 1000 votes. So, I don't think we can be accused of vote-catching opportunism.
A report from Oxford, including a few words from Claudia:http://www.cherwell.org/news/oxford/2014/05/25/european-election-results-for-oxford-announced
I wouldn't advise having a dig at the victors etc. Look at the situ with UKIP, they seem to thrive on their enemies attacks. Better to follow the advice of Northern Light and write letters to the press thanking those who voted SPGB, getting in a bit more propaganda about real socialism etc. Also inviting those who voted SPGB to contact the party for more info etc.
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