Rotherham By-election Labour Elite Betrays Local People by Dictating Outside MP
ElectionOracle / UK Politics Nov 14, 2012 - 07:22 PM GMTFollowing the disgrace of the expenses fiddling Labour MP Denis MacShane exiting the scene, resulting in an by-election for the Rotherham constituency and thus offering a chance for local representation.
Yesterday, at short notice less than 6 hours ahead of the local consistency labour party's selection meeting, the Labour Elite chose to ignore ALL of the local Labour party candidates and instead only offered a choice between two candidates both of whom were from outside of the city -
- Sophy Gardener
- Sarah Champion
One of the fundamental prerequisites for democracy is that the person seeking to represent an area in parliament is from within that community. In this respect the Labour elite have decided that no one in Rotherham is of any value. Both candidates were unknown to all consistency members prior to the day of selection meeting as an email earlier in the day from the Consistency Secretary illustrates as excerpted below -
URGENT - Rotherham By Election
"I am writing to you to let you know that the NEC drew up the Rotherham Shortlist yesterday and it is an All Women Shortlist of two – Sophy Gardener and Sarah Champion – and, before you ask, I know very little about either of them other than the e-mails which each have now sent round."
So having excluded all local candidates, the local Labour party members were asked to choose between two unknown outsiders in a masquerade of democracy for the mainstream media in what the Labour elite expected would be a rubber stamping meeting. Instead the response of most Labour party members (114) was to walk out in disgust leaving behind some 30 members to select one of the two unknown imposed candidates. The result was that Sarah Champion was selected to be the next Rotherham MP by a total of just 13 votes, against 11 for the other candidate, and they call this democracy?
The Labour elites actions make a mockery of everything that the Labour party pretends to stand for as enshrined in the Labour party's constitution and so effectively amounts to betrayal of the people of Rotherham who have loyally turned out to re-elect a Labour MP continuously for over 80years. Clearly the Labour elite have taken the electorate of Rotherham for granted and thus seek to force candidates such as Denis MacShane and now Sarah Champion so as to serve the interests of the Labour Elite that have now placed her in the safe Rotherham Labour Seat.
The message that the Labour elite are sending out is that the people of Rotherham are not capable of representing themselves and hence they need to have someone from outside of the city dictated down to them from Labour HQ.
Labour Voter Response
Rotherham's Labour voters will need to consider whether they want to elect an MP who will seek to represent their interests in or not, as voting for a candidate who does not even live in the city ensures that the issues of the people of Rotherham will be irrelevant to next job for life MP.
The only hope for the people of Rotherham is to send a message to the Labour elite that they will not be dictated to, that they will not allow themselves to be taken for granted, and abused in this manner.
I am sure the Labour party election machine will be busy attempting to rewrite history of who Sarah Champion is and what links she has with Rotherham, for which there is already media spin that she first stepped foot in Rotherham a couple of decades ago though had gone mostly awol since by living and working elsewhere and therefore no unfolding day to day experience of the lives of the people Rotherham.
Candidates Standing at by-election - Local candidates in bold.
Michael Beckett - Liberal Democrats - Malton, North Yorkshire
Clint Bristow - Doncaster
Sarah Champion - Labour - Derbyshire
Jane Collins - UKIP - Haltemprice & Howden, Humberside
Simon Copley - Independant - Rotherham Rother Valley, Rotherham
Paul Dickson - Independant - Wansbeck, Northumberland
Ralph Dyson - Independant - Barnsley
Yvonne Ridley - Respect - Roxburghshire, Scotland
David Wildgoose - English Democrat - Sheffield
Simon Wilson - Conservative - Normanton Pontefract & Castleford, West Yorkshire
Of all of the above candidates ONLY 1 actual resides in Rotherham and thus actually has some credibility in terms of being aware of the issues that the people of Rotherham face.
The by-election is turning out to be an utterly disgraceful facade of playing at democracy as the major party's such as Labour ignore what is in the best interests of the local people who are being asked to march to the polling stations zombie style to mark an X against a candidate whom they have never heard of, nor likely ever will see again after the election as the winning candidate disappears back to where they reside.
Rotherham By-Election Forecast
Labour goes into the by-election with a strong 10,450 majority, so despite voter anger at having an outsider imposed upon them still has an huge unbridgeable advantage that is enhanced by Coalition Government mid-term blues. So probability strongly favours the Labour candidate winning the by-election, albeit with a smaller majority, because at the end of the day ALL of the other major parties are putting up candidates from outside of Rotherham with the most ridiculous being Respect who had to cross Hadrian's wall to find a candidate, how the hell is someone living in Scotland going to know what the day to day issues of people living in Rotherham are?
Rotherham, Don't be fooled on election day, for this is NOT democracy, this is the political elite dictating who should represent the people of Rotherham, No choice of local candidate means No Representation.
By Nadeem Walayat
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