2011 Barnsley Central By-election
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Barnsley Central by-election was a by-election for the
Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...
's
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger State (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...
of
Barnsley Central Barnsley Central is a constituency in South Yorkshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2011 by Dan Jarvis of the Labour Party. Constituency profile Barnsley Central is generally an urban seat and has a large m ...
which took place on 3 March 2011. The by-election resulted in the Labour Party holding the seat with an increased majority.


Background

On 19 June 2009, Barnsley Central MP
Eric Illsley Eric Evlyn Illsley (born 9 April 1955) is a former British Labour politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley Central from 1987 until 2011. He was a Labour Party representative until suspended from the party after being char ...
of the Labour Party was one of dozens of MPs identified by ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...
'' as having made "phantom" claims for
council tax Council Tax is a local taxation system used in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a tax on domestic property, which was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, replacing the short-lived Community Charge The Community C ...
on their parliamentary expenses. Illsley claimed over £10,000 for council tax in four years although he was only charged £3,966 for his Band C property in
Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area expe ...
in this period. He regularly submitted claims for £200 a month, which meant that he did not have to submit receipts. He was re-elected in the 2010 general election, but shortly after, on 19 May 2010, he was charged with three counts of false accounting. He was subsequently suspended from the Labour Party and continued to sit as an Independent Labour MP. On 11 January 2011, Illsley pleaded guilty to three charges. Sentencing was postponed for four weeks, during which Illsley remained an MP and therefore continued to receive a Parliamentary salary. A prison sentence of more than 12 months would have meant Illsley being automatically disqualified from Parliament under the provisions of the
Representation of the People Act 1981 The Representation of the People Act 1981 (c. 34) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates the provision for the automatic disqualification of an MP if they are imprisoned for over a year, leading to a by-election being hel ...
, but a sentence of 12 months or less would not. The
Speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** I ...
ruled that Illsley's case was ''
sub judice In law, ''sub judice'', Latin for "under a judge", means that a particular case or matter is under trial or being considered by a judge or court. The term may be used synonymously with "the present case" or "the case at bar" by some lawyers. I ...
'' and therefore no motion to expel him from the House of Commons could be debated until after sentencing. Labour leader
Ed Miliband Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband ...
and others called on Illsley to resign, and Illsley announced on 12 January 2011 that he would do so. Illsley resigned on 8 February, two days before sentencing. The writ for the by-election was moved the following day, setting polling day as 3 March 2011. On 10 February, Illsley was sentenced to exactly 12 months. At the 2010 general election, Barnsley Central was Labour's 52nd safest seat, and has, with its predecessor seat of
Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...
been held by the party since 1935. In 2010, the Liberal Democrats and the
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
took second and third places, with only six votes separating them. The
British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...
was the only other party to retain its deposit.


Candidates

Barnsley Council confirmed the Statement of Persons Nominated on 16 February. Labour Party members of the Barnsley Central constituency chose
Dan Jarvis Daniel Owen Woolgar Jarvis (born 30 November 1972) is a British Labour Party politician and former British Army officer who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley Central since 2011. He also served as the Mayor of South Yorks ...
as their candidate on 27 January 2011. Jarvis, a Major in the
1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment The 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (1 PARA), is a battalion of the British Army's Parachute Regiment. Along with various other regiments and corps from across the British Armed Forces, it is part of Special Forces Support Group. A special ...
who served in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan, is the first Labour candidate for this constituency or its predecessor to be born outside Yorkshire since 1938. On 10 February it was disclosed that
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
leader
David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...
had approached former
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
cricketer
Darren Gough Darren Gough (born 18 September 1970) is a retired English cricketer and former captain of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. The spearhead of England's bowling attack through much of the 1990s, he is England's second highest wicket-taker in one-da ...
, known to be a party supporter, with an invitation to fight the seat. Gough declined due to other commitments but pledged to campaign in the by-election. Later that day 32-year-old businessman James Hockney was announced as the Conservative candidate. Hockney is a
South Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, England, with a population of 162,119 at the 2021 census. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chesterton Rural District and South Cambridgeshire Rural District. I ...
councillor who fought the neighbouring Barnsley East constituency in 2010. The
British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...
had declared its intention to stand Enis Dalton as a candidate in the election. The Candidate for the
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 members of Parliament and was the largest par ...
(UKIP) was
Jane Collins Jane Maria Collins (born 17 February 1962) is a British politician and horse show-jumper who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber from 2014 to 2019. She was elected in May 2014 as a member of the UK ...
, a miner's daughter from
Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the towns in the City of Wake ...
. The Liberal Democrats selected journalist
Dominic Carman Dominic Carman (born 23 August 1961) is a British journalist, writer and Liberal Democrat political activist. Family Dominic Carman was born on 23 August 1961 in Hale, Cheshire. Educated at Manchester Grammar School and Durham University, Car ...
on 12 February. The son of late barrister
George Carman George Alfred Carman, QC (6 October 1929 – 2 January 2001) was an English leading barrister during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1979, he successfully defended the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe after he was charged with conspiracy to murder. ...
, he had fought
Barking Barking may refer to: Places * Barking, London, a town in East London, England ** London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, a local government district covering the town of Barking ** Municipal Borough of Barking, a historical local government dist ...
at the 2010 election and, as a long-time campaigner against the BNP, wrote an unofficial biography of the party's leader,
Nick Griffin Nicholas John Griffin (born 1 March 1959) is a British politician and white supremacist who represented North West England as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014. He served as chairman and then president of the far-righ ...
, which remains unpublished. (On polling day, the London ''
Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...
'' reported that
Nick Clegg Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is a British media executive and former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who has been president for global affairs at Meta Platforms since 2022, having previously been vicepr ...
had not visited the seat at all during the campaign, and was "the first Lib-Dem leader to jettison his candidate in this way since at least 1999".) Independent candidate Tony Devoy stood in the same constituency at the general election with policies related to living wages and MP salary reductions. He was the
Libertas.eu Libertas was a pan-European political party founded by Declan Ganley that took part in the 2009 European Parliament election in several member states of the European Union. It won one seat in France. History Creation In 2008, the Libertas In ...
lead candidate at the 2009 European Parliament elections in the East Midlands region. Fellow independent Michael Val Davies campaigned on reforming the tax system, telling the
Barnsley Chronicle The ''Barnsley Chronicle'', published in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, is one of the UK's oldest provincial newspapers and one of the few weeklies still in private ownership. It was launched in 1858 and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008. It i ...
newspaper that he had 'no chance of winning' the byelection.


Result

Labour retained the seat with a significantly increased majority, while the Liberal Democrats suffered a sharp fall in votes compared to the election 10 months previously. UKIP finished second with nearly one in eight of the votes, while the Conservatives finished third with just over 8% of the votes, and the British National Party's 6% share of the vote saw them finish fourth. The result was notable for being the first time that UKIP came second in a Westminster election, and for the large drops in vote share by the coalition Government members, the Liberal Democrats' sixth position attracting particular attention.Barnsley by-election: What now for Lib Dems?
by Brian Wheeler, BBC News, 4 March 2011
This would set the pattern for many more by-elections during the 2010-2015 parliament; the Liberal Democrats would lose their deposit in 11 of 19 by-elections in
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
, while UKIP came second in eight contests, and would ultimately go on to win two by-elections in 2014.


See also

* 1889 Barnsley by-election * 1897 Barnsley by-election * 1938 Barnsley by-election * 1953 Barnsley by-election *
List of United Kingdom by-elections The list of by-elections in the United Kingdom is divided chronologically by parliament: Parliament of the United Kingdom *List of United Kingdom by-elections (1801–1806) * List of United Kingdom by-elections (1806–1818) *List of United Kingd ...


References


External links


Barnsley Central Conservative Association

Dan Jarvis Standing Up For Barnsley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnsley Central By-Election, 2011 2011 elections in the United Kingdom 2011 in England By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in South Yorkshire constituencies Elections in Barnsley 2010s in South Yorkshire