Labour win Newport West By-election.

The Newport West By-election has not sent an earthquake through Welsh Politics and very much went the way as predicted.

It seems Brexit may have had little effect on the result and even Ukip third place may have been due to Neil Hamilton notoriety .


The position of the top Six has been unchanged in the last three elections.

Newport West by-election 2019

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Ruth Jones	9,308	39.6	-12.7
	Conservative	Matthew Evans	7,357	31.3	-8.0
	UKIP	Neil Hamilton	2,023	8.6	+6.1
	Plaid Cymru	Jonathan Clark	1,185	5.0	+2.5
	Liberal Democrat	Ryan Jones	1,088	4.6	+2.4
	Green	Amelia Womack	924	3.9	+2.8
	Renew	June Davies	879	3.7	N/A
	Abolish the Welsh Assembly	Richard Suchorzewski	205	0.9	N/A
	SDP	Ian McLean	202	0.9	N/A
	Democrats and Veterans	Philip Taylor	185	0.8	N/A
	For Britain	Hugh Nicklin	159	0.7	N/A
Majority			1,951	8.2	-4.8
Turnout			23,615	37.1	-30.4
Registered electors
	Labour hold		Swing	-2.4

The last election saw the late Paul Flynn Comfortably ahead

General Election 2017: Newport West

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Paul Flynn[6]	22,723	52.3	+11.1
	Conservative	Angela Jones-Evans[7][6]	17,065	39.3	+6.8
	UKIP	Stan Edwards	1,100	2.5	-12.7
	Plaid Cymru	Morgan Bowler-Brown[6]	1,077	2.5	-1.5
	Liberal Democrat	Sarah Lockyer	976	2.2	-1.7
	Green	Pippa Bartolotti[8]	497	1.1	-2.0
Majority			5,658	13.0	+4.3
Turnout			43,438	67.5	+2.6
Registered electors			64,399
	Labour hold		Swing	+2.2

Though Ukip have seen their vote decline in the last four years.

General Election 2015: Newport West^[9]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Paul Flynn	16,633	41.2	-0.1
	Conservative	Nick Webb	13,123	32.5	+0.2
	UKIP	Gordon Norrie	6,134	15.2	+12.3
	Plaid Cymru	Simon Coopey	1,604	4.0	+1.2
	Liberal Democrat	Ed Townsend	1,581	3.9	-12.7
	Green	Pippa Bartolotti	1,272	3.2	+2.1
Majority			3,510	8.7	-0.2
Turnout			40,347	64.9	+0.1
Registered electors			62,137
	Labour hold		Swing	-0.1

Maybe Ukip are probably the happiest  with their third place and Plaid the most frustrated and wondering if Labour's lies about them forming a coalition with the Tories after the next Assembly election had any affect .


For the Liberal Democrats this was not one of the seats that they have ever made a serious challenge too, and it looks like Newport West , will remain a two seat marginal for a while longer.

Brexit for some reason seems to have had little effect on the result and it appears that both parties who think that Brexit will favour them and those who advocate Remain thinking it will break the two party system are misguided.

Indeed as the Tories and Labour continue meeting to find some way out of the Brexit deadlock they may not be too worried about a negative response from the voters.

But we will see.