The Oldham West and Royton by-election was a UK parliamentary by-election held on 3 December 2015 in the

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, ...

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 ...

in Greater Manchester. This was the first by-election of the 56th UK Parliament. The by-election was caused by the death of the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) Michael Meacher 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 t ...

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 Parliament ...

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 scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...

. 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 Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, branded and commonly referred to as Oldham Council, is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of ten in Greater Man ...

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; Jane East, who contested the seat of Colne Valley 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 (UKIP) came second in the constituency at the 2015 general election and fielded a new candidate, John Bickley, who was runner-up at the by-election held in 2014 in the neighbouring constituency of

Heywood and Middleton Heywood and Middleton is a constituency in Greater Manchester represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Chris Clarkson of the Conservative Party. Constituency profile The constituency covers the west half of the Me ...

. 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, 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, its ...

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 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 ...

came a close third to UKIP at the 2015 general election and selected James Daly, a

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

and

Bury Bury may refer to: *The burial of human remains *-bury, a suffix in English placenames Places England * Bury, Cambridgeshire, a village * Bury, Greater Manchester, a town, historically in Lancashire ** Bury (UK Parliament constituency) (1832–19 ...

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 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019. It resulted in the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party receiving a Landslide victory, landslide majority of 80 seats. The Conservatives made a net gain of 4 ...

. 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 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 foundation ...

, having contested the constituency for the Greens at the 2015 general election. Sir Oink A-Lot stood for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

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's leadership of the party. On the morning after the by-election, UKIP leader Nigel Farage 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?" However, others in UKIP downplayed the allegations, with deputy chairman

Suzanne Evans Suzanne Elizabeth Evans (born February 1965) is an English journalist and politician, formerly associated with the UK Independence Party (UKIP). On 6 May 2010, she was elected as a Conservative Party (UK), Conservative councillor in the London ...

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