ANALYSIS: The Local Election Results 2023 - by Paul Golding
Now that the dust has settled on our second local election campaign, I want to send all of our loyal supporters an analysis of the results.
First, let me provide some important context on what happened yesterday.
Firstly, the Conservatives suffered very badly across the country.
The electorate seemed to punish the Tories by voting for other mainstream options, particularly Labour.
British politics is mostly a frustrating game of table tennis, where voters switch from Tory to Labour, then back to Tory, then back to Labour, and onwards endlessly.
After 13 years of Conservative misgovernment, the electorate decided to give them a bloody nose at the polls yesterday by voting Labour.
Labour surged across the country with some spectacular results.
Likewise, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party also made significant gains everywhere.
As far as we can see, the much heralded ‘Reform Party’ stood in around 500 council seats and failed to win a single one.
This is despite Reform being given round-the-clock media exposure on a plate by the Establishment.
UKIP lost all of their remaining councillors and faced a total collapse of their vote.
UKIP is shrivelling up and decomposing as a credible political party fast.
UKIP had its day and served a purpose in getting our country out of the EU, but now it needs to be put to bed once and for all.
Taking all the above into consideration, the election can be summed up in a nutshell by saying that the Left made huge gains, and the Right faced a massive crushing defeat.
Somehow, despite their woke extremism, their insistence that some women have a penis, their support for immigration etc, the Labour party was the clear and decisive winner in this year’s local elections.
The Labour juggernaut was to seriously impact our own performance in several specific seats, but more on that later.
It should be mentioned that in this election, we instituted a new system to manage our campaigns, giving them a designation of Gold, Silver or Bronze.
Gold campaigns were given the optimal manpower, attention and resources, especially with canvassing and postal mail-outs.
Silver campaigns were given at least one mail-out, but primarily rely on leafleting with a little bit of canvassing thrown in.
Bronze campaigns are essentially paper candidates, where little to no effort is applied.
It was most certainly an ‘interesting’ election for our party, to say the least.
Our Gold campaigns were Walkden North in Salford (Ashlea Simon) and Darenth in Dartford (Nick Scanlon).
Our Silver campaigns were Hockley in Essex (Paul Harding), Ballard ward in the New Forest (Nick Lambert) and Bideford South in Devon (Philip Green and Marie Townsend).
Our Bronze campaigns were Broadheath ward in Altrincham (Donald Southworth, below) and my own campaign in Swanscombe, Dartford.
Resources, manpower, time and effort were deployed according to the designations above.
The first result to be declared was our candidate Paul Harding (below) in the ward of ‘Hockley & Ashingdon’ in Rochford borough, in Essex, near Southend-On-Sea.
This was Paul’s first time standing in an election and he did a brilliant job throughout the campaign both with the campaigning and the admin and paperwork that accompanies standing for election.
Hockley & Ashingdon ward is a true blue, leafy, safe Tory area, not exactly fertile Britain First territory, as we tend to do better in working class areas.
Paul’s campaign included a full sweep of leafleting, canvassing of about 70% of the ward, a mail-out to the postal voters and a last minute mail-out to an assortment of voters.
When the votes were counted and declared, Paul had gained some 13.1% of the vote, defeating Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
In my book, that’s a superb result for a first time effort in a ‘Middle England’ area.
In the small town of Walkden, on the outskirts of Salford, party chairman Ashlea Simon stood for the second time in Walkden North ward.
Last year, out of nowhere, Ashlea came second, beating the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
Ashlea (below left) ran a professional and sophisticated campaign once again, putting in huge and sustained effort across four months of hard and relentless campaigning.
Once the dust had settled on Thursday evening at the AJ Bell stadium in Salford, the Labour Party local election juggernaut had won the day, but Ashlea still polled very strong again, coming second, beating the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, and, also, the Reform Party too.
Ashlea was subjected to a profound smear campaign by far-left extremists.
These extremists, who refuse to stand in elections themselves, visited Ashlea’s ward to deliver smear leaflets at least eight times.
The next result to be declared was in Ballard ward, in New Milton, in the New Forest borough.
Our candidate, disabled British Army veteran Nick Lambert (below right), had campaigned on his own tirelessly in his ward.
I had the pleasure of travelling down to campaign with him several times.
He is a thoroughly nice man and a real asset to Britain First.
He was out every day on his mobility scooter leafleting for hours on end on his own.
This was Nick’s first time standing as an election candidate and the first time we had even visited his region, let alone stood in an election there.
When the votes were counted, Nick polled a very respectable 12.6% of the vote, beating the Green Party.
Not bad for a first time effort in virgin territory with little to no manpower.
Next up was Darenth ward, outside of the historic town of Dartford, Kent, and our candidate Nick Scanlon (below).
We chose Darenth because it is very, very small and previously had voted for UKIP in large numbers despite them only standing paper candidates.
We put a lot of effort into Darenth, especially with canvassing.
Once again, the Labour vote in this ward surged in a big way compared to previous levels and that, combined with a very popular local independent candidate, held us back from receiving the vote that we thought we would have received.
Sometimes local factors make a decisive difference in electoral outcomes.
It also has to be noted that Darenth is a leafy Tory area, not a working-class suburban estate, but despite all of this, Nick polled a healthy 10.1% of the vote.
It should be borne in mind that the traditional Liberal Democrat national average is 10%, so Nick’s result is still something to be proud of, especially as it was a first-time effort in a new area.
Having had decades of experience in nationalist electoral politics, I am fully aware of the agitation caused to left-wing opponents when the ‘leader’ of a ‘far right’ party stands for election himself.
I remember back in 2010 when BNP leader Nick Griffin stood in Barking, East London, drawing massive opposition from the entire left-wing scene on himself, leaving everyone else essentially in the clear.
I had acute memories from last year’s local elections of leftist groups delivering smear leaflets in our Salford target seat.
Therefore, I decided to stand myself on the other side of Dartford in an area called Swansombe, to draw the ire and hate away from our other South East target wards in Darenth and Hockley.
The deception worked, as Darenth was not visited once by far-left extremist groups.
The communist hate groups ‘Stand Up To Racism’ and ‘Hope Not Hate’ both visited Swanscombe to deliver smear leaflets.
Neither of these groups visited Darenth.
‘Hope Not Hate’ actually visited Hockley to deliver smear leaflets, but leafleted the wrong ward!
They targeted ‘Hockley’ ward, whereas we were standing in ‘Hockley & Ashingdon’ ward.
We kept this quiet until late on polling day and then I announced their error on my Twitter account.
To keep our leftist opponents away from Darenth and Hockley, I leaked the fact that I was standing in Swanscombe even before the nominations were announced in early April.
As soon as I said ‘Swanscombe ward’ in a campaign video, our far-left extremist opponents were all over it.
When we publish the video report of our campaign in a few days time, you can see us talking about this deception in the days before polling day, long before any votes were counted.
As Swanscombe was a Bronze campaign, we only leafleted it (on the last Saturday of the campaign when the Darenth and Hockley campaigns had essentially ended) and canvassed about 20% of the ward (about three months before polling day), mainly for the benefit of our cameras.
When the votes were counted for Swanscombe, I only polled 5%, but I wasn’t particularly interested, as I only stood for a specific reason, to act as a magnet for our far-left extremist opponents, and it worked, although they will never admit they were duped.
The final result was a genuine shock to everyone in Britain First.
Britain First candidates Philip Green (below right) and Marie Townsend (centre) stood in the lovely town of Bideford, in north Devon.
Because of their remote location, they were hamstrung to a degree by a lack of local Britain First activists.
But both Philip and Marie hit the streets relentlessly delivering wave after wave of election leaflets.
I wish, with hindsight, that we would have taken this particular target seat more seriously, but we had no clue that we could poll so strong in such a lovely area.
On Friday afternoon, our candidates sent me the result.
Britain First polled some 17.3% of the vote.
This was a brilliant result for a first-time effort in an area that is almost certainly 100% white indigenous.
This great result was achieved despite a smear campaign organised by the communist rabble ‘Stand Up To Racism’.
Here is a list of our results:
Walkden North (Salford): 18.1%
Hockley & Ashingdon (Essex): 13.1%
Ballard (New Forest): 12.6%
Darenth (Dartford): 10.1%
Swanscombe (Dartford): 5% (10% if two candidates)
Bideford South (Devon): 17.3%
In must be stressed, to get a true perspective on our results, that in various wards around the country, Britain First defeated the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and the Reform Party.
In the teeth of a major national swing to Labour, the Lib-Dems and the Greens, I think we did particularly well.
As a political party, we now have a nucleus of around 30-40 experienced election practitioners.
We have vast experience in a variety of sophisticated electoral tactics and strategies.
We have multiple offices packed with printers and experienced staff who are capable of mounting big election campaigns.
The only disappointment is that we failed to actually win a seat somewhere, but the Reform Party – which has resources far in excess of Britain First and constant media coverage – stood in 500 seats and failed to win a single one.
Likewise, UKIP lost its remaining six councillors.
The list of results above is impressive I feel for a party that is only a year and a half old and which has been subjected to sustained persecution, censorship and sabotage from the authorities and far-left opponents.
Now that the local elections are out of the way, we can spend the next six months organising endless campaigns, activities, protests, Battle Bus tours, and so on.
We will now pivot to activism for the rest of the year, to build our profile and public recognition.
I want to pay tribute to our candidates, our activists and our members and donors, without whom this campaign would not have been possible.
Without your dedication, commitment and sacrifice, all hope would be lost.
Britain First represents the final hope of survival for our long-suffering people.
If you haven’t already, please join our party as a member and help us take our country back for our children.
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