Previewing the Elli, Carmarthenshire by-election of Wednesday 6th March 2024
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
One by-election on Wednesday 6th March 2024:
Elli
Carmarthenshire council, Mid and West Wales; caused by the resignation of independent councillor John Jenkins.
We kick the month of March 2024 off by travelling to Wales for a rare Wednesday by-election. As to why this is… well, elections in Wales have got a bit complicated. This year the whole of Wales is due to go the polls for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in May and also for the Westminster election at some point, and there will be some local by-elections to slot in as well.
One difficulty with slotting in these local by-elections is that Westminster, PCC and Welsh local elections now have three different franchises, as a result of reforms made by the Senedd in recent years. The main difference between them is which foreign citizens have the right to vote. Broadly speaking, citizens of the UK or citizens of Commonwealth countries who are legally resident in the UK can vote in Westminster elections if they are aged 18 or over. Police and crime commissioner elections use the English local government franchise, which adds EU citizens who have settled status in the UK or who satisfy certain other tests.
The Welsh local government franchise goes further than this by granting the vote to anybody, whatever their nationality, who is legally resident in Wales — including 16- and 17-year-olds. This definition is much simpler to understand and administer, but the differences from the more restrictive Westminster and PCC franchises are going to cause problems when those elections are held at the same time — there will be people attending polling stations (mostly 16 and 17 year olds) who will be eligible to vote in one election but not in the other. With no fixed date for the next Westminster general election, some returning officers are very worried about this — hence the Carmarthenshire returning officer’s attempt to avoid any possible clash of polls by scheduling this by-election for a Wednesday. The returning officer for Bridgend, which this column will visit tomorrow on the traditional Thursday date, was clearly less concerned about this matter.
Which brings us to the Elli ward of Carmarthenshire. This is named after St Elli, a son or daughter (depending which story you believe) of the fifth-century King Brychan who set up a church on the banks of the River Lliedi. St Elli’s church now forms the south-eastern corner of Elli ward, which is an entirely built-up area: it’s the north-west corner of the town of Llanelli, along the Pembrey Road and the New Road.
Llanelli is the largest town in Carmarthenshire and the westernmost of the industrial towns of South Wales, being a traditional centre for the production of tinplate. It has also retained a significant Welsh-speaking population, and this together with the fact that the Llanelli parliamentary seat includes rural areas outside the town means that Plaid Cymru can be competitive here. In Senedd elections Llanelli has often been very closely fought between Labour and Plaid, with Labour wins by just 21 votes in the 2003 Assembly election and by 80 votes in 2011. The current MS, Labour’s Lee Waters, enjoys a rather more comfortable majority of 5,675. Plaid have never broken through here in Westminster elections, wbere Llanelli has been a Labour seat continuously since 1922; indeed, Dame Nia Griffith (who has represented the town since 2005 and is currently the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office) is only the fourth MP for Llanelli in the last century.
Plaid Cymru have more support in the areas of Carmarthenshire council outside the current Llanelli seat, and in the 2022 local elections they won an overall majority of one seat in the county: 38 seats against 23 Labour and 14 independent councillors.
Things are rather different in Elli ward, which is the most middle-class ward in Llanelli town. It hit the headlines in 1993, at the last election to the former Dyfed county council, when a young lawyer called Robert Buckland won by 3 votes to become the first Conservative councillor in Llanelli for many a long year. Buckland, who lost his seat to Labour at the first elections to the modern Carmarthenshire council two years later, went on to have a distinguished political career: during his time on Dyfed council he was the Tory candidate for South Wales West in the 1994 European Parliament elections and in the 1995 Islwyn by-election (where he lost his deposit). Two more failed Parliamentary campaigns later, Robert Buckland finally made it to the green benches as Conservative MP for South Swindon; he went on to serve in government under four Conservative prime ministers, as Solicitor General for five years, as justice secretary and Lord Chancellor under Johnson, and finally as Welsh secretary. He was appointed KBE shortly after leaving government in 2022, and now chairs the Commons Northern Ireland select committee.
Sir Robert Buckland never sat on the modern Carmarthenshire council. His old seat in Elli ward voted Labour in 1995 and Lib Dem in 1999, before being gained for the Conservatives in 2004 by John Jenkins. Jenkins is apparently notable enough for Wikipedia. He had already hit the headlines after being selected as the Conservatives’ prospective candidate for the Llanelli constituency in the 2003 Assembly election at the age of 22, then being forced to stand down over deeply homophobic remarks he made on a web forum. Despite this history, in 2006 Jenkins was selected as the Conservatives’ prospective candidate for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire in the 2007 Assembly election, a post he held for just 24 hours before the above homophobic remarks were dragged out of the archives.
After this John Jenkins broke with the Conservatives, and he was re-elected in 2008 and at every Carmarthenshire election since as an independent candidate. In 2022, on revised boundaries for Elli ward, he polled 48% of the vote against 27% for Labour and 10% for Plaid Cymru. Jenkins stood down from the council in November after nearly 20 years’ service, for health and family reasons: he has a young child and he has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Two independent candidates have come forward to succeed Jenkins. Sharon Burdess was an independent candidate for the town’s Lliedi ward in 2022, after she failed to get the Labour nomination for those elections; Stephen Williams is a retired police officer and local resident. Labour have selected Nick Pearce, who is the current Mayor of Llanelli and represents the ward on Llanelli town council. The Plaid Cymru candidate is Steve Beckett, who runs a data protection consultancy in the town. Also standing on a long ballot paper are Richard Williams for the Conservatives, Wayne Erasmus for Gwlad (a party campaigning for independence for Wales), Justin Griffiths for the Lib Dems and Hettie Sheehan for UKIP. We should get a very quick result, because Elli ward only has one polling station (the Lantern Centre) and the count will take place there straight after the close of the poll.
Coming up tomorrow are four by-elections, including a Mayoral Special in Lewisham. Stay tuned for that.
Westminster and Senedd constituency: Llanelli
Westminster constituency (from next general election): Llanelli
ONS Travel to Work Area: Llanelli
Postcode district: SA15
Steve Beckett (PC)
Sharon Burdess (Ind)
Wayne Erasmus (Gwlad)
Justin Griffiths (LD)
Nick Pearce (Lab)
Hettie Sheehan (UKIP)
Richard Williams (C)
Stephen Williams (Ind)
May 2022 result Ind 333 Lab 185 PC 72 C 54 Ind 49
Previous results in detail
If you enjoyed these previews, there are many more like them — going back to 2016 — in the Andrew’s Previews books, which are available to buy now (link). You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).
Andrew Teale
