Witney result:
CON: 45.1% (-15.1)
LDEM: 30.2% (+23.5)
LAB: 15.0% (-2.2)
GRN: 3.5% (-1.5)
UKIP: 3.5% (-5.6)

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 21, 2016

GRN & UKIP lose deposits with the purples coming 5th

In the end the Witney by-election ended up very much as predicted. The numbers above are pretty close to what Shadsy of Ladbrokes had projected in the Tweet I’d highlighted in the previous thread.

For a party with double digit leads in all the national polls the Tory vote drop in Witney was poor & hardly vote of confidence in Mrs. May or her approach to BREXIT

The CON vote collapse was surely not helped by having a leaver as candidate. The area voted REMAIN on June 23rd. It raises questions on the government’s EU extraction strategy.

This was always going to be a huge challenge for the LDs but after years of by election misery they’ll be delighted with an outcome that looks like progress and is in line with the big successes they’ve been having in local by-elections. In fact they picked up another council seat from the Tories last night.

Labour put a lot into this and managed to avoid being squeezed too much. But Labour started in a second place and the main opposition party should have been doing much better.

UKIP and the Greens did poorly both losing their deposits. The fifth place for the purples doesn’t auger well and it is not clear where they fit in this post BREXIT world.

The Green hope of having the brother of Bernie Sanders as their candidate. didn’t produce anything like the benefit they’d hope for.

Pro hard BREXIT parties, CON & UKIP, see vote DOWN by 20.7% in Witney by-election. Anti-BREXIT Liberal Democrats vote UP 23.5%

— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 21, 2016

Mike Smithson

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