LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – In the Birmingham Erdington by-election, voting has begun. In a by-election, voters in the constituency of Birmingham’s Erdington in England are voting for a new MP. The election comes after the death of Labour’s Jack Dromey, who died in January at the age of 73.
He had been in office since 2010 and rose through the ranks of the Transport and General Workers’ Union to become a significant figure in politics.
There are a total of 12 candidates running, with polling booths open from 7:00 a.m. until 22:00 p.m.
The outcome will be announced on Friday.
The enlisted 12 candidates are running for office, listed alphabetically:
- Robert Alden, Conservative Party
- David Bishop, Militant Bus-Pass Elvis Party
- Jack Brookes, Reform UK
- Lee Dargue, Liberal Democrats
- Paulette Hamilton, Labour Party
- Siobhan Harper-Nunes, Green Party
- Clifton Holmes, Independent
- Michael Lutwyche, Independent
- Mel Mbondiah, Christian Peoples Alliance
- Dave Nellist, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
- Thomas O’Rourke, Independent
- Sir Nos Da The Good Knight, The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
In the 2019 general election, Mr Dromey, who was married to a former Labour cabinet minister and temporary party leader, Harriet Harman, won the seat with a 3,601 majority.
Ms Harman talked of “the profound shock of his sudden death from heart failure” on January 7 during tributes to Mr Dromey in the Commons by MPs from all parties on 2 February.
Mr Dromey, a veteran trade unionist. He became the deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, which is now a part of the Unite union, in 2003, died at his flat in Birmingham at the age of 73.
He was the Labour Party’s treasurer at the time of the “cash for honours” accusations when Tony Blair was PM, and later won the seat of Erdington in the general election in 2010.
He held a number of shadow ministerial positions, including shadow immigration minister, and on the day before he died, he spoke in a Commons debate about the difficulties faced by Afghan immigrants in the UK.
Labour has held Erdington, a constituency in Birmingham’s northeast, since 1974 when it was created, albeit with narrow three-figure majorities in Margaret Thatcher’s election triumphs in 1979 and 1983.
Erdington is one of Birmingham’s ten parliamentary seats and the constituency in the city that supported Leave in the 2016 European Union referendum by the biggest majority, 63 percent to 37 percent.
59 year old, a mother of five and a former nurse, Paulette Hamilton, is a member of cabinet for social care and health on the Labour-controlled Birmingham city council, is defending the seat for Labour.
Robert Alden, a councillor for Erdington and the leader of the Conservative group on the city council, is the Conservative candidate. He has run for the constituency in the last four general elections.
Dave Nellist, a former Militant Tendency MP for Coventry South from 1983 until 1992, when he was expelled from the Labour Party, is one of the 12 candidates. He is running for the Coalition of Trade Unionists and Socialists.
Along with three small parties and three independents, the Liberal Democrats, Green Party, and Reform Party – formerly Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party – are also running in the by-election.
