North Shropshire By-Election: One step forward, two steps back
Anyone who has seen the corruption and incompetence of Boris Johnson’s Premiership must be pleased to see the Tories lose so heavily in the North Shropshire By-Election. Given that Labour clearly if informally stood back for the LibDems some will see it as a victory for a broader progressive politics.
Historically things look rather different. The seat was created by the 1832 Reform Act, a measure that was passed after a wave of popular protest for democratic reform that actually did very little to allow participation by working people in Parliamentary politics. In the nineteenth century the seat was a contest between the Whigs (Liberals) and the Tories and independent labour politics had no place.
That changed from 1900 and at the 2017 General Election Labour took 31.1% of the vote. The 9.7% Labour got on Thursday suggests not progress but a road back to 1832.
There is an interesting study* of Parliamentary Elections in the unreformed and reformed Parliament between 1819 and 1841 for Shrewsbury. The constituency then returned two MPs. The constituency of Shropshire was split between North and South Shropshire in 1832
There were 1500 electors in Shrewsbury in 1841 but while the majority did not have the vote they could still campaign and have a say at election meetings. Most elections saw one Whig (after 1859 Liberal)and one Tory candidate elected. While Party labels were not always used there was an appreciation between the reform candidate and the conservative one.
However in a sharp reminder of much more recent times (2010-2015) the differences between the two positions were not always clear cut. In the 1837 Election the Tories attacked the new (Whig) Poor Law and Workhouse pointing out that, for example the new Whig dietary plan replaced a daily allowance of 12 ounces of good table beer with four pints of gruel and allowed no beer at all.
By 1841 when Disraeli was a Tory candidate for Shrewsbury (having moved from Maidstone) the Tories were attacking the Whigs as the Party that had been responsible for deporting the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Australia.
In short both Whig and Tory were parties quite capable of promoting reactionary policies and attacking each other for doing so.
Labour first stood in the successor constituency of Owestry (from 1885) at the 1918 Election and with no Liberal candidate got 40% of the vote. The 1950s saw Labour votes in the high 30%s (again when no Liberal stood). When both Labour and Liberal candidates stood the combined vote (if it had combined) would have defeated the Tory. However the crossover between the two parties was at best partial
*Journal of Modern History Vol 63/4 December 1991John A Phillips and Charles Wetherell The Great Reform Bill of 1832 and the Rise of Partisanship
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