Category Archives: immigration

Stoke Central By-Election: Final Word before Polling

I have blogged twice previously about the upcoming Stoke Central by-election:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/stoke-on-trent-central-preview/

and

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/stoke-on-trent-central-by-election/

in which I predicted a very close race. In the latter post I suggested that UKIP and Paul Nuttall could finally crack it and defeat Labour in a former Labour heartland. That post was written on 26 January, since which date Paul Nuttall and UKIP have run one of the least impressive campaigns seen for a long time. Labour is now  (21 February) 8/13 odds-on favourite, with UKIP out at 9/4, having been at one point 10/11 favourite.

The latest polling seems to suggest, however, that UKIP and Labour are neck-and-neck in the affections of the voters:

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/survey-predicts-tight-result-in-stoke-on-trent-central-by-election/story-30149927-detail/story.html

As the Stoke Sentinel report says, turnout will therefore be key. UKIP voters tend to be older, tend to vote, tend to be more motivated politically than Labour voters now are. Those factors favour UKIP strongly. Against that, the NHS is a major issue, which favours Labour (especially because Nuttall seems to have flirted with market forces in the NHS, albeit some years ago). Immigration, race, and culture is probably a combined major issue under the surface, something which is often obscured in polling by reason of the pervasive political correctness.

All weather forecasts are showing that Polling Day, Thursday 23 February 2017, will be a cold, wet and windy day across the country, featuring “Storm Doris”. That will depress voting numbers in Stoke Central, which is already one of the least-voting constituencies in the UK (in 2015, the turnout was 49%).

On the face of it, Paul Nuttall seems a poor candidate and UKIP a bit of a joke. However, it was revealed during the campaign that the Labour candidate, Gareth Snell, is a spotty and rather unpleasant Twitter troll, who posted, only a few years ago, some juvenile-level insults about women. He also grievously insulted EU Referendum Leave voters, in one of the most Brexit-friendly parts of  the UK.

In addition, Gareth Snell seems not to have had a job outside local Labour and connected union politics, living off his council allowances and expenses.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4219874/Labour-s-election-candidate-caught-sexist-rant.html

One has to ask whether Stoke Central voters want to be represented by such an unpleasant person. We shall see.

Prediction

It may be foolish to predict anything now that the race seems so close, but I am still inclined to think that UKIP might crack it despite everything that has happened. In the end, if Labour wins, Stoke Central gets another and particularly useless Labour MP, whereas if UKIP wins, Stoke Central really is on the map.

The main indicators still look good for UKIP:

  • turnout
  • voter motivation
  • voter age profile

as against which Labour has on its side

  • traditional Labour voting pattern
  • Muslim voters [6%+].

Conclusion

This looks bad for Labour. Either Labour loses to UKIP or Labour scrapes a pathetic fingertips win. If the former, Labour will go into a tailspin and its MPs will be lining up to find new jobs after 2020; if Labour “only just” wins, then Labour’s decline continues anyway.

As for UKIP, only a win will do. A win keeps the UKIP train clattering along its rusty rails. If UKIP loses here, then that is derailment or the end of the line, whichever metaphor might be preferred.

Update, 14 July 2025

Well, in the end, Gareth Snell won the by-election for Labour with 37.1% of the vote. UKIP’s Paul Nuttall got 24.7%, and the Con Party candidate, Jack Brereton (who was later elected MP for another seat, Stoke on Trent South, 2017-2024), got 24.3%.

Snell was re-elected at the 2017 General Election, but was unseated at the 2019 General Election by the Conservative candidate, Jo Gideon, who however stood down before the 2024 General Election (she was then 71: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Gideon). Snell was then returned as MP at the 2024 General Election.

Paul Nuttall eventually resigned from UKIP, which became more or less dormant after that, or co-incident with that. Nuttall thereafter faded from political life until (surprisingly) he made a comeback, having been appointed Deputy Chairman of Reform UK in early July 2025. He therefore is (again, surprisingly), not necessarily washed-up, politically. He is still only 48. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Nuttall#UKIP_Leadership.

So there it is. At time of writing, Snell is still the MP, though it is an open question as to what will happen at the next general election. Reform UK may clinch it.

Arguably oddly, in May 2025 Snell married Ruth Smeeth, now also “Baroness Anderson” and a Labour peer (as well as Israeli agent and former informant for the U.S. Embassy in London). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Smeeth.

The UK Housing Crisis

The housing crisis in the UK is perhaps the most pressing problem the UK, certainly England has, apart from mass immigration. The two are connected, of course. It is idle to imagine that the housing crisis can be solved without stopping mass immigration, yet the System political parties all maintain that the two problems (or facts) are unconnected. In any TV discussion on housing, mass immigration is the elephant in the room, rarely if ever mentioned by the participants. This is remarkable.

The latest statistics [https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statistics-net-migration-statistics] for immigration show that (official, “legal”) “net immigration” into the UK was 327,000 in a single year (about 700,000 came in, some left, some British people also emigrated). Even if two or three immigrants live in one house, that means that somewhere around 100,000-200,000 houses or flats would be required to house these incomers. In one year. Another 100,000-200,000 houses next year…and so on. In fact, the situation is worse than that, because the immigrants (certainly the non-Europeans) have a far higher birth rate than the British. In parts of London and elsewhere, there are already far more births to immigrant mothers than to British ones.

About 150,000 new houses are being built each year in the UK now, but the House of Lords has said that the UK “needs” (largely because of immigration and births to immigrant mothers) 300,000 more houses each year:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/14/england-needs-to-build-50pc-more-homes-than-governments-target-s/, while even more conservative estimates say 250,000.

In other words, there is a shortfall each year of at least 100,000 dwellings, yet the System political parties will not address the main reason why British people either cannot get a house (whether to buy or rent, as prices and rents spiral) or pay through the nose to do so. The Labour Party is particularly culpable, because it both promotes mass immigration and yet cries about the “housing crisis”! No wonder its former voters are deserting it in droves.

British people are divided by the crisis: a minority are living as rentier parasites and/or are profiting (on paper) via inflated property values. The majority are paying huge amounts in mortgage payments or excessive rents, simply so as to have a roof overhead. This cannot continue.

The solution to the housing crisis in, particularly, England, is to

  • stop mass immigration;
  • repatriate as many immigrants (and offspring) as possible;
  • prioritize British people for all forms of housing;
  • build decent State housing for rental;
  • change planning rules in large parts of Victorian and interwar London;
  • found beautiful new garden cities and towns without destroying the countryside;
  • decentralize the UK, to prevent the South and South East being ruined.