Thursday's by-elections - nondescript performance by BNP

There are just three local council by-elections on which to comment this week, the British National Party contesting two of them but failing to put in a promised appearance in a third.

Both seats the BNP did contest were virgin territory for them, leaving us unable to measure their performance against previous outings.

Chester-le-Street Central ward saw a strong Labour vote on May 3rd, its two candidates garnering 42.07% and 39.52% respectively, leaving a lone Local Conservative to scrape a meagre 18.12%. Thursday's contest was more straightforward. In a dismal 25% turnout a single Labour candidate took nearly 60%, and while the Conservatives lost 2% on May, the intervention of LibDem and BNP candidates sucked enough votes from Labour to give them 14.89% and 9.38% each.

Chester-le-Street Central ward result (percentages on right):

Lab	324	59.56
Con	88	16.18
LibDem	81	14.89
BNP	51	9.38
Total	544

With nothing to compare the BNP's Central ward vote against, it is difficult to assess its importance. Their 9.38% does not begin to approach the 20%-plus gained in similar first-time outings in Nuneaton and Whitehaven last week, however the pitiful turnout and that fact that the party did not contest the nearby Washington East ward by-election - allowing it to concentrate its resources - worked in the BNP's favour.

The BNP did contest Washington East in May, receiving only 6.29% of the vote. Reasons for not contesting this time were that the party missed the nominations deadline, and that it wanted to concentrate on Chester-le-Street Central. Either excuse could be true - or it might be that the party was worried that on current trends even May's 6.29% would be eroded down to something even more embarrassing.

Whatever the reason, the abandonment of Washington East can only mean that the BNP believed it could do very much better in Chester-le-Street Central - if an improvement of slightly over 3% in a very low poll can be said to be anything of the kind. Though the outcome is hardly pleasing to us, this nondescript result can hardly be pleasing to the BNP, particularly as the local party organisation was able to concentrate resources into the ward.

BNP hopes in Lloyd's ward (Corby), an electoral division of Northamptonshire County Council, were for a 20% vote. As with Chester-le-Street Central, Lloyd's ward was virgin territory for the BNP, and we know (because they have told us) that a half-way professional campaign was mounted, which included some determined canvassing. As we noted last week in our remarks on Nuneaton Abbey ward, there must be something amiss with the BNP's electoral machine, since whatever the party's canvass returns were telling it, less than 13% of Lloyd's ward's electors (on a 30.7% turnout) voted for the BNP.

Northants CC Lloyd's ward (Corby) result:

Lab	1093	53.47
Con	375	18.35
LibDem	311	15.22
BNP	265	12.96
Total	2044

Neither the Chester-le-Street Central nor Northants CC Lloyd's ward results are particularly instructive, though we can note with a certain amount of satisfaction that the BNP expected to do better. Washington East would have given us a more realistic indication of the party's fortunes, but we must wait until next week when the BNP will be contesting some previously fought wards for a more productive analysis of its ongoing electoral performance.