The British general election of 2024, part 3-Workers Party, SDP, Independents and all the rest

In addition to the five parties I mentioned in the first 2 parts of this analysis, other political parties, as well as Independent candidates more than ever before, made a notable impact in this year's British general election.

The Workers' Party, the newest creation of George Galloway, failed to make the impact pollsters predicted it would, partly because it only stood 152 candidates when it had announced more than 250 initially, although this was still enough for it to qualify for a Party Political Broadcast, and also because like Reform UK some of its candidates were mired in controversy; for example, their candidate in Wakefield & Rothwell, former rugby player Keith Mason, was initially suspended over past offensive Tweets he had posted but later reinstated It polled only 0.7% of the vote as a result, and won no seats; in fact George Galloway himself lost Rochdale, which he gained in the 2024 by-election there, lost by 1,440 to Huffington Post journalist Paul Waugh, not even the closest margin a Workers' Party of Britain candidate missed winning a seat by. That accolade went to former student activist Jody McIntyre, who had never stood for election before, who missed gaining Birmingham Yardley by just 693 votes; former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray meanwhile only finished 3rd in Blackburn (where he had stood as an Independent in 2005 against then Justice Secretary Jack Straw) but ironically because of the heavily split vote that resulted a different pro-Gaza candidate, Adnan Hussain, did gain it from Labour. Meanwhile, James Giles also came within 1,566 votes of unseating former Cabinet Minister Liam Byrne in the new Birmingham Hodge Hill & Solihull North seat. Workers' Party votes varied very significantly from constituency to constituency, with former Conservative councillor Louise Dickens, granddaughter of former Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens, polling as few as 90 votes in the outgoing Prime Minister's seat of Richmond & Northallerton, and more Workers' Party candidates losing their deposits than not, even in ethnically diverse constituencies such as Manchester Central. Like Reform UK, their subpar on the ground organisation dragged down their potential, and their failure to concentrate on issues the electorate considered more pressing, such as the NHS and the cost-of-living crisis, limited their potential in less diverse constituencies.

The continuity SDP was the only other party in Britain to qualify for a Party Political Broadcast, with as many as 122 candidates. However, most of them fared badly; they usually finished bottom of the poll and most did not poll even 1% of the vote. The only 2 constituencies where they saved their deposits were in Doncaster North and Leeds South, neither of which had a Reform UK candidate; journalist Rod Liddle narrowly lost his deposit in Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland as did all their candidates in Sheffield even with Reform UK tacitly supporting them. The SDP was largely drawing from the same voter poll as Reform and those still willing to vote Conservative despite its more moderate position on many issues than either of those parties, and apart from Mr Liddle it did not have any notable candidates. Furthermore they received little media coverage in the run-up to the election compared to the Workers' Party, even if much of the greater media coverage the WPB received was for the wrong reasons.

Independent candidates had collectively their best results ever since 1945 (and in 1945, 5 of the Independents represented university seats, which since only graduates of said universities could vote and because of university education in the UK primarily only being available to the wealthy prior to World War II, did not meet the requirements for free and fair elections)-they won a total of 6 seats, and 5 of them had not previously served as an MP anywhere. The most successful of them, however, was, with Jeremy Corbyn winning 49.2% of the vote in Islington North where he had been a Labour MP since 1983; not only did he have longstanding popularity in Islington North but the replacement Labour candidate, Praful Nargund, was criticised for his links to the private healthcare industry inter alia. The 4 other Independents who won seats in England were all pro-Palestine candidates standing primarily on the Gaza issue and against what they perceived as Labour's inability to listen to ordinary voters, the 4 Independents in question being Ayoub Khan in Birmingham Perry Barr (he initially intended to stand for the Liberal Democrats there, having been a Lib Dem councillor for Perry Barr ward), Adnan Hussain in Blackburn, Iqbal Mohamed in the new seat of Dewsbury & Batley, and Shockat Adam in Leicester South, defeating Shadow Paymaster General Jon Ashworth. 3 of the seats in question had suffered perceived neglect by Labour at a local and national level, and all 4 have significant levels of deprivation with 2, Birmingham Perry Barr and Blackburn, being in the bottom income decile in Britain. 2 other Independents in the same mould, Zaffar Iqbal and Akhmed Yakoob, came relatively close to unseating Labour MPs in Birmingham Ladywood and Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton respectively. However, in Birmingham Hall Green & Moseley, such an Independent-inclined vote was heavily split allowing Labour MP Tahir Ali to hold on even though his vote share dropped to 30.5%; this constituency also saw 7 candidates save their deposit, a new record in a British constituency. Surprisingly their performance did nothing to boost flagging turnout levels in the aforementioned six constituencies-in fact in all 4 constituencies won by these Independents, the turnout decrease was greater than the national average. Notably, Mr Hussain won Blackburn with just 27% of the vote on a 53% turnout, meaning he won the support of only 14.3% of the eligible electorate of his constituency-the lowest such percentage ever recorded in United Kingdom electoral history (even former SDLP MP Alasdair McDonnell, who polled only 24.5% in Belfast South in 2015, which is still the lowest winning vote share in a UK constituency even after this election, won the support of 14.7% of the eligible electorate there). 

Many other Independents, however, were not so lucky, although more Independent candidates saved their deposits than ever before. Former South African MP Andrew Feinstein stood as an Independent in Holborn & St Pancras South against incoming PM Sir Keir Starmer but only finished a distant second, although that exceeded almost everyone's expectations. James Bagge only finished 4th in South West Norfolk with 14.2% of the vote, considerably lower than expected, but it proved a critical factor in Liz Truss losing that seat to Labour. Former sub-postmaster Yvonne Tracey, conversely, polled just 2.2% in Kingston & Surbiton against Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey. Ex-SNP MP Angus MacNeil polled just 10.1% of the vote in Na h-Eilanan an Iar and finished 3rd; Labour easily gained the seat from the SNP and would have done so even if Mr MacNeil had been the official SNP candidate. None of the 3 ex-Conservative MPs standing as Independents saved their deposits: Andrew Bridgen only polled 3.2% in North West Leicestershire, finishing 6th, although he polled 556 more votes than Labour won this constituency by so he did make an impact. Rob Roberts and Julian Knight, standing in Clwyd East and Solihull West & Shirley respectively after their previous seats had been abolished, fared even worse with 599 and 594 votes respectively (1.3% in each case), the lowest ever for an incumbent United Kingdom MP; Emma Dent Coad, the Labour MP for Kensington from 2017 to 2019 and who had been denied renomination in the new Kensington & Bayswater seat, polled only 4.4% and Labour won the seat by as many 1,079 votes more than Ms Dent Coad polled. None of the 11 candidates standing under the name of YouTube prankster Niko Omilana, including the real Mr Omilana himself, came even close to saving their deposit either. Perennial Independent candidate Bobby "Give Me Back Elmo" Smith got the wooden spoon of this election, finishing with just 19 votes in Holborn & St Pancras.

Other parties generally made no real impact; UKIP fared worse than ever although the exception was them saving their deposit in Stone, Great Wyrley & Penkridge. In that constituency the Reform UK candidate had withdrawn at the last minute to support the sitting Conservative MP, Sir Gavin Williamson, who held the seat, and it is likely that a large number of voters who would otherwise have voted for Reform UK voted UKIP in protest. Despite the coverage the Cass review on gender identity services for children and young adults received earlier this year, no Party of Women candidate came close to saving their deposit with its leader, Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull polling just 196 votes in Bristol Central, and nor did any Women's Equality Party candidate; some polls (e.g. from YouGov) had previously shown that only 3% of respondents at most considered gender politics a priority issue so this is not actually that surprising. The hard left Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition performed poorly, even when they mostly stood in constituencies with no Workers Party candidate or notably socialist-inclined Labour MP. The Rejoin EU party flopped, rarely polling more than 1%; it has been more than 4 years since Britain left the European Union and the European Union's current crises do not make it particularly desirable to join in the eyes of many British voters. The Climate Party made no impact on the Green vote, with most of the 13 Climate Party candidates polling fewer than 100 votes and making no difference as to whether the Green Party saved their deposit or not (they did not stand in any of the 4 seats the Green Party won) in the 13 constituencies in question. A few parties that only stood one candidate did manage to do well, however, although Jason Zadrozny of the Ashfield Independents saw his vote share drop sharply to 15.7%, finishing 3rd but with almost double the votes of the Conservative candidate defending the seat against ultimately successful Conservative-to-Reform UK defector Lee Anderson (ironically the Conservative candidate in question, Debbie Solomon, stood as the Brexit Party candidate in Bassetlaw in 2019); in Mr Zadrozny's case he was stymied by the incumbency advantage of Mr Anderson, given that the voting base of the Ashfield Independents and Reform UK is very similar-traditional and strongly local voters ("Somewheres" as opposed to "Anywheres") with working-class backgrounds who were dissatisfied with both Labour and the Conservatives.

Coming up in part 4-Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.