David Jamieson elected as Labour win West Midlands PCC by-election

Labour’s David Jamieson has been elected as the new Police and Crime Commissioner of the West Midlands, following yesterday’s by-election. Jamieson received 50.8% of first preferences across the seven councils voting, meaning that second preferences did not have to be taken into account.

The full result is:

Labour – 102,561 (50.8%)
Conservatives – 54,091 (26.8%)
UKIP – 32,187 (15.9%)
Lib Dems – 13,056 (6.5%)

Due to the lack of independent candidates Labour, the Tories and UKIP all saw their share of the vote increase by over 8%, while the Lib Dems stayed the same. Turnout fell from 12% to 10.32%, but the swing to Labour actually saw us increase our number of votes.

The by-election was called following the sad passing of Bob Jones six weeks ago.

Labour topped the poll in Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Dudley and Walsall – but the Tories scored a comfortable victory in Solihull, where turnout was at its highest with 11.58%. The lowest turnout was Coventry, at 9.54% and in some districts the “on-the-day” turnout was as miserably low as 1%. The election cost £3.7million, and 89.67% of electors did not vote.

Jack Dromey, the MP for Birmingham Erdington and Labour’s Shadow Policing Minister, reacted to the news:

“We are pleased that those who voted put their trust in Labour’s candidate David Jamieson. He will be an excellent Police and Crime Commissioner for the people of the West Midlands, carrying on the important work of his predecessor Bob Jones in tackling crime and making our communities safer.

“But this election was characterised by costly chaos and nine out of ten voters not turning out to vote. Theresa May’s fundamentally flawed legislation allowed UKIP to trigger, within days of Bob Jones’ death, a by-election in the middle of August covering the second biggest electorate outside of London. Key staff were on holiday, many polling stations were closed and many electors struggled to vote because they were on holiday.

“David Cameron and Theresa May must take responsibility for this botched process which has cost taxpayers’ at least £3.7m – money which could have been spent putting 158 new police officers on the beat.”