6 February 2017

Will Labour Lose in Stoke?

Can Ukip's Paul Nuttall achieve a breakthrough?
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By Stephen Bush

Labour are spooked and no mistake about Paul

Nuttalls chances of winning Stoke-on-Trent
Central, a safe Labour seat that the party has
held since 1935.

The party faces a double bind: the

Conservatives have effectively pulled out of the
race, fielding a paper candidate, in part to
concentrate resources on the Copeland by-
election on the same day, and also because
local Conservatives want to focus their efforts
on the nearby metro Mayor race in the West
Midlands.

They also have an emerging Liberal Democrat

problem. That party is having a punt, in the
words of one senior Liberal Democrat. That their
candidate, Zulfiqar Ali, is of Kashmiri descent,
makes things trickier still for Labour. 15 per
cent of the seats population is British-Kashmiri,
and the party hoped to be able to continue its
post-2010 trajectory of making increasingly
large inroads into Britains ethnic minority vote,
to offset its continuing woes with white working
class voters.

Jeremy Corbyn is a particular asset among

Kashmiris, due to his longstanding support for
the people of Kashmir and his long history of
anti-Israeli statements and associations. But
party strategists fear that any gains a high-
profile visit by the Labour leader would secure
among that group would be obviated by
concomitant losses among the citys white
working-class voters.

For Ukip, that opens up a dream scenario where

they take a chunk out of the Labour vote, are
buoyed by tactical voting on the part of the
seats Conservative voters, and Labour also lose
a chunk of voters, both from Remainers and the
citys Kashmiri population.

It is still a very difficult road for Ukip to walk

and that Nuttall is being talked up in the press
may help Labour to squeeze the Liberal
Democrat vote more effectively than it might
otherwise. Im not abandoning my initial
assessment that Labour should count as
favourites to hold the seat. But while Id be very,
very surprised if it happened, a shock should
not be ruled out.