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Again:
– there is no proof that Wrexham voted ‘overwhelmingly’ to leave – because there is no recorded count for Wrexham alone
– most Wrexham voters did not ‘revalidate’ this supposed result in the EU elections – most voted for parties other than Brexit or UKIP
– there has been no actual ‘mandate’ from the people of Wrexham for leave or remain – we don’t know what the people of Wrexham voted for.
I’m not claiming that Wrexham voted to remain, only that we don’t know how it voted. We can therefore only make ASSUMPTIONS.
Is it difficult for people to acknowledge this? Where has this idea come from – which seems to be spoken of as if it is a fact – that Wrexham voted to leave? Are people taking other people’s word for it or are they knowingly making it up? I actually checked whether these claims were true and I couldn’t find the evidence – can anyone else cite the evidence?I looked at the referendum results back in April, before the EU parliamentary elections.
[quote quote=166256]
I tried to find out how the referendum results were distributed across parliamentary constituencies. To my surprise, it’s not actually possible. According to the House of Commons Library, results were published by “counting area” (this seems to have been NUTS 1 level) and “local authorities weren’t ever required to publish the results by Parliamentary constituency or by ward”. Results that have been published by parlcon (e.g. on Wikipedia) are generally based on ESTIMATES produced by an academic (Dr Chris Hanretty). The BBC later wrote to all local authorities asking for specific counts by ward where available and the result is that of the 650 parlcons in the UK, we only KNOW the referendum results for 169 of these (26% of the parlcons). The largest difference between Dr Hanretty’s estimates and the known result for a parlcon is Hall Green in Birmingham – he estimated that 43.3% there voted leave, when in fact 33.6% actually did. Other discrepancies were much smaller – and he got the leave/remain result the wrong way around in 6 constituencies – but we still only know the discrepancies for those 169 parlcons the BBC obtained the actual results for.Given that there are no actual referendum results by parlcon for 74% of parlcons (and this includes Wrexham), it would be difficult for an MP to vote according to the referendum wishes of their own constituents. To be fair to MPs, another difficulty for them in knowing how best to interpret the wishes of their constituents is that since the referendum we’ve had a general election. Despite his stance on Brexit being at odds with the result of the “counting area” of “Wales”, Ian Lucas was voted in again, with 49% of the vote. This is a marked improvement for him on the 2015 general election result where he got 37% – but perhaps this is at least in part due to the fact that UKIP, which got 16% of Wrexham’s vote in 2015, managed to make a pig’s ear of their registration in the 2017 election and so did not field a candidate.
Wikipedia gives various distributions including “major cities” – in Wales, Cardiff voted remain and Swansea voted leave. The ward level data obtained by the BBC is available to download and does not appear to include any ward level results for Wales.
I think it’s easy to pick an approach that an MP could adopt to base their decision on. Ian Lucas could use the results from the counting area of Wales, or the fact that he was elected after the referendum despite his views being contrary to the referendum result. My own opinion is that Wrexham voted leave – but it is only my opinion based on anecdotal evidence and I could well be wrong. There is a wealth of information out there; but nothing is clear cut or directly comparable and everything is open to interpretation. How Ian Lucas interprets things may be different to you and I. I do find it astounding actually that disaggregated data on referendum results was not collated as standard.[/quote]
The EU parliamentary election results from May 2019 for Wrexham can be found here:
https://www.wrexham.gov.uk/assets/pdfs/elections/european/2019/statement-of-local-totals.pdf
Yes, the Brexit candidate won the seat, but the total number of votes for the Brexit and UKIP parties combined is 13,130 and for all the other parties combined it is 19,497. 244 papers were rejected. I imagine some of the Labour and Tory votes were from Brexiteers and others from remainers – but how many we don’t know.Regardless of whether a person is a supporter or not of Ian Lucas, or pro- or anti-Brexit, it is simply not true to claim that there was an overwhelming leave vote from Wrexham in the referendum, or that Wrexham unequivocally demonstrated its wish to leave in the EU elections. We do not know either way.
[quote quote=170814]
How an Earth a conversation about local GPs quickly descends into a discussion about Nazism and eugenics is beyond me. If this is the level of political discussion among voters in this area, then no wonder it’s in such a mess.
I tell you what I find more highly surprising – the number of people coming across as outraged that Nazism was brought up in the conversational equivalent of cloud cuckoo land (here) than the very real and worrying threat that in less than a decade or so there’s not going to be enough GPs to go round all the people that need seeing in this area. [/quote]
Cognitive dissonance. It’s a knee-jerk reaction when one’s preferred single-issue political party is called out.[quote quote=170416]I have absolutely no idea what this post is actually about[/quote]
I share your confusion, Alun. I contribute to the Cats Protection League and I put my trust in them to use the money/goods/time donated by me and others to help cats. If they instead used the donations to help with Wrexham’s substance abuse community I feel it would be unethical of the Cats Protection League to have asked for money under false pretences and I would never donate to them again.
I am an athiest but, like Matt, I don’t have an issue with the church spending its own funds on “churchy” things. As a general principle I think the church & other religious organisations could do a lot more to help those most in need in our society – but it’s an issue of practising what they preach for me, not how they spend their money. I might feel differently if I attended church & contributed to their collections.
Substance abuse is not the only issue out there nor is it necessarily the worst. If you donate to a ‘homelessness’ charity then is that wrong because you’re not donating to, say, research into cancer or Parkinson’s disease?
Donating to charity is not mandatory – benefactors still pay their taxes and are choosing to then spend some of their net income on charity, whereas others might choose instead to spend their disposable income on luxuries such as holidays and hobbies. The Cats Protection and church funds are donated to by people who are under no obligation to donate this money to anyone at all. How is it wrong of them to voluntarily contribute to a registered charity of their own choosing?
[quote quote=169521]Hi Matt,
… it was very definately the corbyn effect that got Ian lucas back into office in the last election[/quote]I disagree with this actually. You may have an opinion on what got Ian Lucas into office based on anecdotal evidence and what people you have spoken to have told you, but you cannot be sure that it was “definitely the Corbyn effect”. I hadn’t voted for Labour since the lies told in order to ‘justify’ the Iraq war under international law (a war that I didn’t necessarily oppose – it may well have been the best of a load of bad options and Saddam was by all accounts a piece of shit – but I resented being lied to).
In the last general election campaign Theresa May said that she had always been in favour of fox hunting. She also visited the Wrexham area twice during the campaign, I believe, and did not engage with the public, only with Conservative party members. I was never going to vote Tory, but in the circumstances (a first past the post system) I felt that a vote for anyone other than Labour would be a wasted vote. My motivation was fox hunting mainly and I very much detested that Theresa May might be elected despite her stance on this. I surprised myself in being able to once again vote Labour.
For me the “Corbyn effect” had absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, I am disappointed by Corbyn’s lack of clarity and leadership on issues, particularly Brexit. I liked him at first if only because he was a conviction politician and whether or not I agreed with his views, he at least seemed to have the integrity to hold firm to them. As party leader, and leader of the opposition, I think he should either support Brexit or oppose it – firmly. My impression of Corbyn is of someone who resents the media asking him for comment, yet it is only through the media that most people get the opportunity to learn of his opinions. How else are we to find out what his views are? The press is basically free advertising for him so why does he not welcome that opportunity? I see his apparent disdain for the media as a disdain for the public, almost like he’s saying “Why should I have to tell you what I stand for?”. If a general election was called tomorrow, I’d vote Labour again – but not because of any particular affinity I hold towards Corbyn, more because of how repellent I find the Conservative party.
[quote quote=168823]what are you going to blame next? The boogie?[/quote]
JP, this has made my day – thank you so much!And they need to get all this sorted whilst still benefiting from Parliament’s summer recess. Or will they volunteer to give that up this year? I feel stupid even asking that question.
Maybe they could commandeer the car park of Eagles Meadow for Comic Con. It might be a tad draughty but it’s a good size and at least it would be dry (I believe this was one of the gripes about the Glyndwr Uni site).
[quote quote=168211]Matt, It must have been hard for the parties to find candidates. It is like applying for a job where within weeks you know you will be handed a P45. No one else in the workplace expected you to be there and they all think your presence is completely pointed. I hope they are going to offer counselling to those unfortunate enough to be elected.[/quote]
I wonder whether MEPs who lose their seats in elections receive ‘resettlement’ payments (as UK MPs do) and, if so, what will happen to them when (if) the UK leaves the EU – will they get some kind of personal financial settlement from the EU and/ or from the UK? If so, that might be an incentive for people to volunteer as candidates.
[quote quote=168121]… many leave voters appear to be really angry, poorly educated, older bigots, fans of Piers Morgan, Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins and various other rent-a-gob right-wing nutcases. The same leave voters that have probably never even been to Europe save from their trips to Lanzarote or some other god awful ex-pat sunny destination, nor know any Europeans, save from the Eastern-Europeans that have opened a shop somewhere nearby, I’d wager. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean every leave voter is like that, just ALL the one’s I’ve met.
[/quote]GoM1, this seems to me to be such a fantastically accurate description!
