Well, I got it wrong vis a vis the headline result. I thought that the Brexit Party would win and indeed enjoy a near-walkover. In the event, Brexit Party had to accept a close 2nd place. As the Americans are supposed to say, “close but no cigar”.

The result of the Peterborough by-election

The result was:

• Labour 10,484 votes, a vote share of 31% (down from 48% in 2017);
• Brexit Party 9,801 (29%);
• Conservative Party 7,243 (21%, down from 46% in 2017);
• LibDems 4,159;
• Green 1,035;
• UKIP 400.

All others, nine in number, received fewer than 200 votes each, most below 100.

In retrospect, my own prediction was badly misled by the betting (which even on the day showed Brexit Party as very heavily odds-on) and by the large and impressive meetings Farage held in the city (one with 2,000 in the auditorium).

I was right about the Conservatives coming third and the LibDems in fourth etc. Still, irritating to have misread the main contest, close as it was. No cigar for me, either.

Why did Brexit Party lose at Peterborough?

In my previous blogging on the specific subject of this by-election, and on other topics, I have made the point that the UK now has cities (including London) where the white population (let alone the British white population) is less than 50%. Peterborough still has, supposedly, about 80% white population, but at least 10% are from other parts of Europe. The white British part of the population is below 70% of the whole, possibly as low as 60%.

There is also the point that the city and constituency are not delineated the same; part of the city is not within the constituency.

When a city has more than a token non-white presence, a nationalist party of any kind will struggle to win elections there, and that applies even if (as is the case with Brexit Party) the party is not social-national, has no racial or ethnic principles or policies, and even if (as with Brexit Party) some of its actual candidates are black or brown.

It is not only that, in general, the “blacks and browns” will not vote for even a mildly (and notionally) “patriotic” party such as Brexit Party (let alone a social-national party) because they fear that party. The point is that the vast majority of ethnic minority voters have little or no real connection with Britain, its society, its history, its culture etc. They are, in a word, alien to Britain. Look at how even those adhering to the far-longer-standing Jewish community are always “threatening” (“promising”?) to flee from the UK if their demands are not met. They are not really rooted here; the roots of the “blacks and browns” are shallower yet.

Thus, in Peterborough, one can surmise that few blacks, Muslims etc voted Brexit Party. Why should they? Why would they? Brexit Party is hardly the British National Party. It offers no implied threat to the minorities, but it is broadly conservative-nationalist in ethos, and that is enough for the ethnic minorities to vote elsewhere, mainly for Labour.

I have been blogging and tweeting for several years about how the UK part of the “Great Replacement” (of whites by non-whites) means that elections become a no-win situation in much of the UK. That was true, for example, in the Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency in 2017. In the by-election of that year, Gareth Snell, a spotty unpleasant Twitter troll, was the Labour candidate. Paul Nuttall stood for UKIP. Snell beat Nuttall, Labour beat UKIP, by only 2,620 votes. The Pakistani Muslim community locally, numbering over 6,000,  almost all (always) vote Labour, a cohesion enforced by dodgy postal ballots and “community” exhortations (eg in local mosques) to vote Labour. Local Muslims 6,000+, Labour majority 2,620…

In other words, without those 6,000 or more Muslims (and others), Nuttall and UKIP would have won Stoke-on-Trent Central easily. As it was, UKIP faded and, at the General Election of 2017, Labour won again, against the Conservatives in 2nd place. Labour won by 3,897 votes. Point made, I think.

Now look at Peterborough. The postal votes were very high (who knows who really fills in the forms?) but even leaving that aside, we see that Brexit Party lost to Labour by 683, in a constituency where the non-European ethnic minorities number perhaps as many as 20,000. “It was the w**s wot won it!”, to paraphrase the famous Sun headline of 1992.

Non-white ethnic minority population in the constituency—10,000-20,000. Votes for Labour in the by-election—10,484

In fact, Labour only won Peterborough by 607 votes at the 2017 General Election, thus propelling useless African ex-“solicitor” Fiona Onasanya into Parliament.

The Future

Labour is, as I have often noted before, now the party, in terms of core vote, of the ethnic minorities (excluding Jews), of the metropolitan “socially liberal” types, of public service workers or officials. The real hard core is mainly the blacks and browns, and the public service people. Labour struggles to win votes wider than that core. Labour won Peterborough in the by-election on a vote-share of only 31%.

Brexit Party has suffered a bad blow. Had it won at Peterborough, its momentum would have carried on. Now, its future seems unclear. It may continue and may yet win seats, but Peterborough was a very good chance despite the ethnic minority vote, and Brexit Party fluffed it.

The LibDems almost quadrupled their 2017 3.3% vote to about 12%, but are still well behind the 2010 days of “Cleggmania”, in which they scored nearly 20% at Peterborough. My opinion? There will be no LibDem revival, at least not on a big scale. Most voters are getting angry. “Centrism” is not the flavour of the times.

The Conservatives were the big losers, as in the EU elections. They achieved what might be regarded as, had it been elsewhere, a respectable 3rd place on a vote-share of 21%, 7,243 votes, only 3,000 or so behind the Labour victor; but Peterborough has mainly been a Conservative seat since 1945. It had a Conservative MP as recently as 2 years ago.

If this result were to be replicated nationwide, there would be little left of the Conservative bloc in the House of Commons. Seats would fall either to Brexit Party, or to Labour (or in a few cases, to LibDems).

Final words

Strategically, a Brexit Party win would have been my preference, in that, down the line, it would expedite the break-up of the “LibLabCon” “three main parties” scam. Having said that, the Conservatives were rightly cast down, while at least the Labour MP elected seems to be to some extent against the Jewish Zionists (though pretty invertebrate when “challenged” on that).

Tweets etc

https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/1136962411666321410

Below, illustrating my point that Labour’s core vote is now “the blacks and browns”

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoke-on-Trent_Central_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/notes-from-the-peterborough-by-election/

https://gab.com/Fosfoe/posts/YldMYkx4cXRRdlpGM2NqWE40QjNYZz09

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Forbes_(politician)

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/peterboroughs-new-mayor-says-prison-stint-should-be-forgotten-as-he-prepares-to-become-citys-first-citizen/

http://participator.online/articles/2019/06/peterborough_byelection_postal_voting_questions_20190611.php

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1140260185446989824