The Oldham West and Royton by-election was a UK parliamentary

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election use ...

held on 3 December 2015 in the constituency of

Oldham West and Royton Oldham West and Royton is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It has been represented by Jim McMahon of the Labour Co-op party since 4 December 2015, after winning a by-election following the death of Mich ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tamesid ...

. This was the first by-election of the 56th UK Parliament. The

was caused by the death of the sitting

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

(MP)

Michael Meacher Michael Hugh Meacher (4 November 1939 – 21 October 2015) was a British politician who served as a government minister under Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Tony Blair. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Ol ...

on 21 October 2015; Meacher had been the Labour Party MP for the seat since its creation in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

and had represented its predecessor seat of

Oldham West Oldham West was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Oldham in the north-west of Greater Manchester. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The constitue ...

since

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and 1 ...

. A writ for the by-election was moved in Parliament on 2 November 2015, setting polling day as 3 December 2015.

Jim McMahon James Robert McMahon Jr. (born August 21, 1959) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, most notably with the Chicago Bears. McMahon played college football at BYU, where he wa ...

held the seat for Labour with a winning 62% of the vote, an increase of 7.3 percentage points. There was a 40.3% turnout.

Candidates

Six candidates contested the election; the statement of persons nominated was released by Oldham Council on 9 November 2015. The Labour Party, which last held the seat, selected its candidate on 5 November 2015 from a shortlist of four: Mohammed Azam, National Executive Committee member and former local

councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

; Jane East, who contested the seat of

Colne Valley The Colne Valley is a steep sided valley on the east flank of the Pennine Hills in the English county of West Yorkshire. It takes its name from the River Colne which rises above the town of Marsden and flows eastward towards Huddersfield. T ...

unsuccessfully at the 2015 general election; Failsworth East councillor

, leader of Oldham Council; and Chris Williamson, former MP for Derby North. McMahon won the selection, reportedly with 232 votes against 141 for Azam in the final round, after the elimination of East and Williamson.

UK Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member ...

(UKIP) came second in the constituency at the 2015 general election and fielded a new candidate, John Bickley, who was runner-up at the

held in 2014 in the neighbouring constituency of Heywood and Middleton. Others talked about as potential candidates were

Paul Nuttall Paul Andrew Nuttall (born 30 November 1976) is a British politician who served as Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2016 to 2017. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate, and ...

, the UKIP deputy leader, and

Steven Woolfe Steven Marcus Woolfe (born 6 October 1967) is a British politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England from 2014 until 2019. Woolfe was born in Moss Side in Manchester and studied law at Aberystwyth Unive ...

, both

MEPs A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, it ...

for

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

. The Conservative Party came a close third to UKIP at the 2015 general election and selected James Daly, a solicitor and Bury councillor, who contested the Bolton North East constituency in 2015. He is current Member of Parliament for

Bury North Bury North is a borough constituency in Greater Manchester, created in 1983 and represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. With a Conservative majority of 105 votes, it is the most marginal constituency for a sitting MP in the U ...

after being elected in the 2019 United Kingdom general election. The Liberal Democrat candidate was

Jane Brophy Jane Elisabeth Brophy (born 27 August 1963) is a British politician who was a Liberal Democrats Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the North West England between 2019 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020 ...

, who works for the NHS in Greater Manchester and has served as a

Trafford Trafford is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England, with an estimated population of 235,493 in 2017. It covers Retrieved on 13 December 2007. and includes the area of Old Trafford and the towns of Altrincham, Stretford, ...

councillor for over 15 years; she was LibDem candidate for

Altrincham and Sale West Altrincham and Sale West () is a constituency in Greater Manchester. It has been represented since its 1997 creation by Sir Graham Brady, a member of the Conservative Party. History The 1995 Boundary Commission review led to its creation for th ...

at the 2010 and 2015 general elections. Simeon Hart stood for the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundati ...

, having contested the constituency for the Greens at the 2015 general election. Sir Oink A-Lot stood for the

Official Monster Raving Loony Party The Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP) is a political party established in the United Kingdom in 1982 by the musician David Sutch, also known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", or simply "Lord Sutch". It is notable for its ...

Results

Aftermath

The result was considered by commentators as surprisingly good for Labour, who had been expected to be more closely challenged by UKIP. It was also reported as a boost for

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the pol ...

's leadership of the party. On the morning after the by-election, UKIP leader

Nigel Farage Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 201 ...

and some other party sources claimed that there had been voting fraud particularly around ethnic minority voters and around postal votes, with Farage claiming the vote was "bent" and that in constituencies with large numbers of ethnic minority voters who do not speak English, "effectively the electoral process is now dead".

, UKIP's deputy leader, said to journalists: "You've got to ask yourself, is this Britain or is this

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its ...

?" However, others in UKIP downplayed the allegations, with deputy chairman Suzanne Evans saying the party risks sounding like "bad losers". Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, dismissed the complaints as "sour grapes". Farage stated that he was planning to make a formal complaint about the allegations. Nuttall wrote an open letter to Greg Clark, the Secretary of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government, raising concerns about postal voting processes.

Previous result

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oldham West and Royton by-election, 2015 2015 in England 2015 elections in the United Kingdom By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Greater Manchester constituencies Politics of North West England Elections in Greater Manchester 2010s in Greater Manchester

Candidates

Results

Aftermath

Previous result

See also

References